Oculus
by Eerily
Summary: Tweek has been haunted by the grotesque form of his missing best friend since childhood. Perplexed by his vivid visions and growing bond with the mangled little ghost boy, he has searched for years to find the answer to one question: Who murdered Craig Tucker?
1. Prologue

Hello, friends, and welcome to my newest fanfiction! This is simply the prologue, or the twisted introduction to this sinister tale. That explains the tiny word count. Future chapters will be longer.

For those of you who read my fanfic _Some Boys Are Monsters_, this is nothing at all like it. The chapters will be much shorter than in previous fanfic, and the story will be much more dark.

So, I'm going to say this now before anyone reads. This is a horror, and it will be smothered in things some might find triggering, so:

**This story contains dark themes. If you can't handle things such as suicide, the murder of a child, self harm, possible insinuation of child abuse in many forms, gore, body horror, vague insinuation of sexual abuse, drowning, being buried alive, or obviously ghosts and other ghouls, then this story is not for you.**

If you can handle those things, go ahead and read on. However, this story only gets more twisted as it unfolds.

* * *

><p>Oculus<br>_Prologue_

"Okay," Craig muttered.

He laid back in Tweek's bed and got comfortable. However, the little blond shuttering beside him was more interested in scanning his dim bedroom in anxiousness than paying much mind to his friend.

"What is it you needed me here for?" Craig finally asked. Tweek said it was urgent. Apparently, there was something rather odd about his new house, though he wouldn't say what.

Tweek's eyes shifted to the ceiling before he softly replied, "There's a man that lives in the attic."

His voice was shushed to a quiet whisper that left Craig feeling slightly chilled.

"A man?" Craig asked with squinted eyes. It was hard to see Tweek in the dim light of the room. Only light from the window made its way inside.

"Yeah. I want you to see him too, so my mom will believe me! S-she _never_ believes me."

Craig wasn't at all alarmed. So many odd things have come out of Tweek's mouth over the years. Ghosts seemed tame in comparison to most of his conspiracies.

Tweek could sense his friend's disbelief. He grabbed him by the front of his pajama shirt and whispered urgently, "I-it's true! If I lay in bed and listen really quiet... I can hear the ceiling creak under his feet..."

They laid in silence for a few moments, as if the eerie groaning of hard wood might fill the space between them. However, much to both of their relief, the sound never comes.

"Ghosts aren't real, you know," Craig said as if he wasn't a little leery himself.

"They are too!" Tweek persisted. "H-he's one! He stands by my bed and talks to me while I try to sleep."

"… Maybe you just dreamed it. Sometimes it's hard to tell them apart. Reality and dreams, I mean," Craig clarified.

Tweek was silent for a short while as he contemplated his friend's point. Maybe they were only nightmares, or even figments of his imagination. It wouldn't have been the first time he believed in something that turned out to be fake… but the man was so real.

He could still so vividly recall the first night he heard knocking at the attic door.

Craig frowned deeply, though Tweek couldn't see it. He leaned forward and slipped an arm around his frightened friend to nestle close.

"It's okay," Craig assured him. "Tonight we'll figure this out."

Tweek didn't say anything back. He just laid there with his forehead pressing into Craig's collarbone. He was trying to will himself not to be scared, but he wasn't so strong at only eleven years old.

As time slowly crept on, though, he let himself slip into a sense of comfort. The hours passed peacefully into the night as he talked with his friend.

Everything was normal.

Everything was calm and sweet, much like it was during every other sleep over.

"You like Wendy and you know it," Tweek teased mindlessly.

"Psh, she's such a know-it-all, though."

"Craig and Wendy sitting in a tree-"

"Don't you even do that stupid rhyme to me. I swear to God."

"_K-I-S-S-I-N-G._"

Craig playfully clamped his hand onto Tweek's mouth.

Much to Craig's displeasure, Tweek knew how to get out of it without so much as lifting a finger.

"Ew!" Craig shouted before wiping his hand onto Tweek's arm. "You didn't have to go and lick me you little weirdo."

Tweek giggled and held his stomach as he laughed.

He wasn't scared anymore.

It was then, when the room had been doused in silence, an odd hum interrupted their coziness. It was fuzzy and loud like static. Alarming.

Ominous.

Craig pulled his covers down to his chin to peer out at the television across the room. The screen was engulfed in flickering snow, and their bed was flashing with its eerie light.

Tweek quickly pulled his covers back up over his head in fear. Craig wasn't so spooked.

Televisions jack up and lose reception all the time. They go fuzzy. They turn on and off. They make noise. That's just what happens, and just because it happened in the dark didn't make it any less routine to the braver of the two.

Then again, he didn't know what was coming.

"Oh, come on, Tweek. It's not that scary," Craig said before lifting himself up out of the bed.

He made his way bravely across the room and pushed the power button.

The screen went black, and all the humming seized.

"See?" Craig uttered triumphantly.

Tweek slowly peeked back out from under his haven of stuffed animals and blankets.

With a small smile, Craig made his way to the bed.

He didn't quite make it back before being startled rigid. The familiar ring of static was humming from behind him.

The television had yet again flicked back to life.

Craig was perplexed, especially seeing the remote sitting undisturbed on a nearby dresser. Still, he wasn't scared.

Not like Tweek, who was rattled down to his bones.

Craig stomped back to the television and ripped it's power cord right out of the wall with a spiteful huff.

Tweek settled a little, and Craig sighed peacefully when he made it back to bed with no more odd occurrences.

"See," Craig announced. "Your TV is just busted. Wires are probably loose or something, you know."

Then, cold shivers scraped up both of their spines. Their blood ran cold. Their breaths caught in their throats and their stomachs tied up in knots.

The television was on.

Craig shot up straight and stiff to ensure he wasn't going mad.

There it was, clear as day. The white glow still filled the room. The screen was still covered in scrambling white and black specks.

The cord was still laying unplugged on the floor.

Craig could only stare in bewildered fear and fascination.

How?... why?

An odd knocking began to accompany the television's disturbing glow. Craig's eyes shifted to the ceiling, where a door to the attic was nestled above said tv.

The consistent thumping seemed to be coming from nowhere else.

That in itself made Craig's skin crawl.

Tweek threw his arms out around Craig and dragged him back down into bed.

"Just ignore it," Tweek whispered with a stutter. "Ignore it and be quiet - it'll leave us alone."

Craig, paralyzed in fear, decided to listen to Tweek's advice.

They lay huddled close together, the both of them trying to steady their breath and keep quiet despite all the noise. It sounded like a single chair was being dragged across a hardwood floor. Its non-existent legs scraped against a surface that simply wasn't there. In that house, there was only carpet.

The static still blared.

There was still a knocking at the attic door, growing ever more violent.

Both of their breaths were caught in their throats when one loud crashing boom resonated throughout the room. All the other noise stopped. All except for heavy footsteps creaking the floorboards.

"Tweek," Craig choked out in absolute terror. The steps were coming closer. From across the room. From the corner which harbored the attic.

Tweek clamped his hand over his horrified friend's mouth. If they made so much as a single noise, it would know they were there.

However, the floor only groaned louder as the shuffling got closer to the bed.

It stopped right at their feet.

Their covers slowly began to be pulled away from them. Their small hands shot up and grabbed the fabric in complete terror.

Craig let out a horrified scream of the likes Tweek had never heard when the covers were ripped away from them. They watched in shock as the fabric collided with the wall, and then fell to the floor in a heap.

Confused and with no other direction, they both stared into the blaring television. The picture flickered and swayed with fuzz. The cord was still laying unplugged nearby.

Craig wanted to scream bloody murder for Tweek's mother to come save them. He could feel someone else in the room with them, watching from somewhere in the shadows.

What was worse, though, was noticing the attic door gaping open.

Their breath was heavy between them.

Craig's fingers curled around Tweek's arm like a vise when they both noticed the dark mass lingering beside the television. It was darker than dark - almost seeming to've absorbed the blackness around it.

Craig let out a strangled whimper of horror. He was too scared to even scream. Tweek took a moment to look at his friend with a similar expression. He could practically see the color dripping off of Craig's once self-assured face. He was paper white, and his mouth was gaped open. Eyes forever trained on the entity invading their space.

On the ghost.

Tweek felt himself grow angry.

Usually, Craig was the all-knowing protector. He'd never encountered something like this. He wasn't haunted every night for the last two weeks like Tweek had been, and he wasn't used to coming face to face with such horrors.

Craig was scared, and the black creature looming in the corner was to blame.

Tweek glared deep into its eyes. They were crimson and glowing like that of a demon. Two orbs floating together in a black puddle on the wall.

It had never been so violent and angry before, and neither had Tweek.

"Go away!" He demanded. Craig's strong hold only tightened when he wrapped himself around Tweek's right arm. Tweek could hear his friend's fear in the rapid breath in his ear.

The menevolant force would not recede.

"What do you want with me?!"

Suddenly, the temperature plummeted. It looked right into Tweek's eyes. Those red orbs felt like a scorching fire boring holes into his skull. Craig's gasping breaths stopped.

He saw the attic. It flashed inside Tweek's eyes like an old film.

He recognized the bare, vaulted ceiling made of two by fours and open insulation. It was dark, though illuminated, like it was caught in the beam of a flashlight. There was no sound or movement.

There was one exception.

A single rope hung from the rafter.

It swung back and forth.

Back and forth.

Tweek's vision flicked like the pattern on the television, melding in and out as the images switched from the creature's invasive eyes to the swinging rope.

A child's happy face.

A woman with kind eyes.

The noose.

A man smiling in a living room he recognized.

The man was wearing the same unsettling grin as he swung. As the noose in the attic caught his fall and his wide, bulging eyes remained locked with Tweek's.

The wide and toothy grin didn't subside. His eyes didn't leave Tweek's, even as he was slowly strangling to death.

Convulsing.

Swinging rhythmically.

Craig didn't see the happy people, the rope, or the eerily wide grin of the man hanging by it. All he saw was Tweek himself, laying back on the bed with wide eyes and mouth hanging wide open like a hatch to a cellar.

In tears, Craig shook Tweek.

He shook him until their tormenter faded back into the shadows. He shook him and cried until the television flicked off and the bedroom door bursted open.

Tweek's mother rushed inside, and Tweek blinked.

"What's wrong? What's with all the screaming?!" Tweek's mother demanded in a panic.

She saw Tweek on his back and Craig cradling him in tears. Horrified, she bolted for the bed and got down to him.

"Tweek? Baby, what's wrong?"

"He strung himself up."

She and Craig both exchanged looks of confusion, though Craig's chest was still heaving and his eyes still wide with fear.

"What?" she asked in a worried tone.

"He put a rope on his neck. He hung from it in the attic."

"That's ridiculous! Who told you such terrible stories?!"

Tweek's breath was still rapid. The image of that disturbing grin lingered in his eyes like a bad taste. That ever unsettling, toothy, grin.

It would never fade away.

"... no one," Tweek confessed with tears finally spilling down his cheeks. "He showed me in my eyes."


	2. Shadowman

This chapter ended up being like 9k words long, so, since I decided on shorter chapters, I thought it best to go ahead and cut it in half. I want to get rid of most of the time skips that happen within my chapters. Let me know whether you guys like the shorter or longer chapters better. With shorter chaps I'll update a lot faster, but with longer chaps each update will have a lot more content, so yeah!

ALSO: Like my previous fanfics, **the opening scene of every chapter is always a flashback** unless I say otherwise. I felt like I should specify since all of this story is written in the past tense.

* * *

><p><em>Tonight's Lullaby: Voices by Little Jungles<em>

* * *

><p>Oculus<br>Chapter 1; _Shadowman_

"Tweek, darling," his mother said solemnly. "We need to have a little talk, if that's okay."

Rain was pounding against the glass her son was staring out of. It set odd patterns on the living room wall through the dark. He was sitting on the seat of the bay window, peering out at the street like he did every day after school. He didn't talk much anymore. He just sat on the green cushion and leaned against the glass.

Waiting.

She came slowly towards him. Her hands smoothed out her nightgown as she took a seat on the same cushion. "It's about your little friend-"

Suddenly, the gloomy boy perked with interest.

"D-did they find him?" Tweek asked without hesitation. "Did they find where Craig is?"

Her lips pursed together, and then she, too, directed her gaze to the storm outside.

"It's been a week now, honey... they still haven't found anything. I'm so sorry, but I'm not sure that they will."

"What do you mean? Of course they will!" Tweek declared. "They have to!"

She forced a smile on her face, and then ran her fingers through her short brown bob. "...yes. Yes, of course. But don't you think Craig would be sad if he saw you sitting here alone all the time?"

Thunder rolled in the distance, and lighting cracked across the sky. In that moment, when the empty street was illuminated in a white flash, he saw someone. It was little more than a faint silhouette in the midst of the wind and rain, but it was there.

Crawling.

He swallowed hard and wiped his eyes.

"I don't know," he admitted.

"Well, how about this. Let's go to bed and leave the window alone for tonight, then I'll make you a big breakfast in the morning. How does that sound?"

Tweek kept his eyes on the road; right where he'd seen the flash that left him bewildered.

"...okay," he agreed.

She stood, and he reluctantly stood with her.

The last place he wanted to be was in his bedroom. David, the man in the attic, still liked to come down into his room at night. It had been a year since he tormented Craig and Tweek during their sleepover, but he never really stopped trying to talk to Tweek.

His sock covered feet scuffed against tan carpet as his mother led him up the stairs and into that very room. She didn't seem to feel the shift in the air like he did. No one really seemed to, though.

Without any fuss, he slipped underneath his comforter.

One of his pillows still smelled a little like Craig. His bottom lip quivered when he caught a faint whiff of it.

He could still remember his friend's face so vividly. He remembered what his voice sounded like as he was drifting to sleep, what the room felt like when he was there. He wanted him back, and he didn't understand why he was gone.

Tears pooled in the small boy's green eyes. He tried not to let them spill over while his mom was with him. He was twelve, after all. He wasn't a baby anymore.

Though he tried hard, his pillow became damp and wet.

Craig.

He couldn't stop the tears from falling. He couldn't stop the sorrowful chokes and whines bubbling up from his throat. He couldn't survive without his best friend.

His body went limp when his mother scooted closer and pulled him into her arms. For an empty few moments, she listened to her only child cry.

What else could she have done? There wasn't a single lie she could say that would calm her son's fear. There wasn't a promise she could make that would change anything.

Craig had been gone for some time now, and the longer he was away the less likely it was he'd ever come back.

Still, she held Tweek. She squeezed him tightly in her arms and pressed a lingering kiss in his hair. Not every mother was lucky enough to kiss her son goodnight, and she would never take it for granted again.

"Would you feel better if I slept here tonight?" she offered softly under his cries.

Much to her relief, Tweek nodded.

The two settled into the warmth of the small bed. It brought little comfort for either of them, though it made Tweek feel better knowing at least he wasn't alone.

However, as the night crept onward, the little boy did not sleep. His mother's chest rose and fell rhythmically. He listened close to her breaths. Somehow it helped him feel safe, though it didn't ease his dreadful worry. His best friend was out there somewhere. Was he alone? Was he cold or hungry?

Those thoughts devoured his mind, and he didn't think of anything else until an odd noise pierced through the quiet.

_Tap, tap._

Tweek's head rose up from his pillow.

_Tap. Tap._

It sounded like knuckles knocking against glass from somewhere across the room.

"Craig?" he whispered hopefully.

He tried not to disturb his mom as he crawled out of the bed, but the moment his feet touched the floor he ran to the window.

_Tap. Tap._

He drew his curtains and looked onto the roof. There wasn't anyone on the other side. There was only a blanket of blackness that fell over his back yard. Still, he opened the window and stuck his head onto the rainy breeze.

A gust of wind blew into his room strong enough to rustle his curtains. It felt ice cold, just like it did when David tried to show him things.

Unnerved, he slammed the window closed and harshly pulled the curtains together.

_Tap, tap. Tap, tap._

It was louder and disturbingly persistent. Something was out there.

It wanted inside.

Scared, the twelve year old darted back to his bed and crawled in close to his mother's side. He practically buried himself under her back. She stirred and sucked in a heavy breath, but otherwise didn't wake.

There was as rustling from across his bedroom. Again, the shaken boy turned his head to the window. The persistent tapping turned into scratching. It was not the limb of an unruly tree causing a racket like most would assume. It was solid bone. Hard, bloody tips scraping against glass as the monstrosity they belonged to tried to pry open the window.

"Mom," Tweek cried softly in apprehension.

In the dark it was hard to see. Often times he'd see figures and shadows, faces and bodies. He always told himself it was just his imagination. They were all just in his head, with the exception of David.

This, though... it was more than the flash of a face or a quiet murmur.

It was opening his window, which, to his horror, he realized he left unlocked.

He grabbed his stuffed turtle off his nightstand and squeezed it tight. From his toy's back, the room became faintly illuminated by faded green shapes.

The breeze again seeped into his room. Curtains fluttered and swayed, and a twisted figure slowly made its way inside. His breath caught in his throat when he watched the dark mass of distorted limbs tumble onto the floor, leaving dark streaks of sludge dripping down his wall. It hissed and choked as it convulsed, and Tweek was rattled with terror.

He slammed his eyes closed as he heard it dig its boney fingers into the carpet. The only thing that horrified him more was its grotesque gurgling slowly inching closer.

It was dragging itself towards his bed.

_It's all in my head, _he thought through brimming tears_. It's a bad dream. A bad dream._

His bedframe groaned beneath him and his mother.

A faint rumbling came from under his bed. It was less like random noise and more like a weeping child. Less like a monster and more like...

_Craig._

Tweek rolled out of bed.

A disgusting trail of bodily fluids and wet earth was slathered across his carpet. He stuck his nose up at the rancid smell. Shivers worked their way up his spine when he realized the dark streaks did indeed disappear under the edge of his bed.

Cautiously, he lifted the blankets to peer underneath. He wasn't nearly as brave as his actions made him seem. If he hadn't been convinced he'd heard Craig's voice, he'd be sobbing under his blankets instead.

"Craig?" Tweek quietly whispered. "Is that you?"

He pressed the back of his stuffed turtle again, which lit the dark space with tiny green moons and stars.

He had been right.

Bloody fingertips stripped of their flesh dug into the base of his box spring. A small form slathered in mud and streaks of dark blood was latched onto the underbelly of his bed, hanging there. He could see its multiple bruised, bare limbs twisted awkwardly around its body as it heaved. The horrid creature was gasping desperately for breath.

"…what happened to you?"

His turtle's green light cast a colorful glow on the bloody mess as it began to move towards him. All he heard was the grinding and popping of bones as a small face slowly peeked out from behind its rotting arm. Or, at least, what was left of a face.

Tweek slapped his hand over his mouth to conceal a scream at the terrible sight. By instinct, he jolted away from the bed and tumbled back onto the floor.

_Oh, God. Oh, Jesus fucking Christ._

Once he gathered his bearings, he quickly crawled back to the bed and yanked the skirt back up. His turtle was still lighting the small space, but, to his alarm, there was nothing there but a few boxes and an old pair of socks.

No gory monster, and no bloody mess on the carpet.

"Craig? Where'd you go?" Tweek gasped with tears in his eyes.

The only evidence that his friend had been there at all was the faint sound of heavy breathing that still lingered around his bed. He searched all night to try to find the source of it. After all, Craig was there somewhere, and he was hurting.

Craig was hurting.

**...**

Five years.

Five years two months and seven days ago.

If he thought hard enough, perhaps he could even count down to the very second it happened.

All those years ago. Those months and days ago, it occurred. His mother asked him a question that triggered the misery and desperation his life became.

"Have you seen Craig?"

He dug his fingers into his sandwich. It was butter and jelly. Not peanut butter, but actual butter. The yellow kind a normal person would use for things like toast.

Tweek liked it much better.

He looked up at his lunch table. It was empty, aside from him and the shuttering creature hiding between his legs.

The other kinds abandoned him a long time ago. At first, they taunted and bullied him. He was a prime target, after all. Spewing out all his make-believe of ghosts gave them plenty to work with. He was practically begging to be shoved in a locker.

However, their mindless torture stopped in middle school.

When their fear began.

They were convinced he wasn't any normal person. He was something so frightening they wouldn't dare to say a word to him. They wouldn't risk bumping into him in the hallway, sitting with him at lunch, or even throwing him a pity greeting.

No one would risk being his friend, let alone his bully.

He was cursed, they said. _Cursed. _

Tweek believed so, too.

Perhaps he could try to conjure up an argument for his normality, but a point would be hard to make. The little hands gripping the backs of his legs were enough in themselves to prove he wasn't normal.

As if in agreement, a low and guttural noise gurgled up from between his knees. If Tweek had to put an image to it, he thought it sounded like someone choking on blood.

"Thanks for that. If you were just going to make fun of me all day you should've stayed home," Tweek reasoned quietly before taking a bite out of his sandwich.

More gurgling followed. It didn't seem to be going by any kind of pattern of speech. It was just a grotesque sound. Sounds Tweek had grown used to.

He looked down in his lap to try to catch sight of the creature. However, there wasn't anything to be seen. There were only the tips of hard bone scraping against his pant legs.

He continued to casually attend to his growling stomach rather than think about it.

He was sinking his teeth into bread and jelly when he happened to glance up in the wrong direction.

Two familiar faces came out of the lunch line. They walked close alongside one another with their trays in hand. One was sporting a rather stylish purple pea coat. The other had a red jersey tied around his waist, though he belonged to no team. They were both smiling and happy.

Token and Clyde.

At one time, he would be smiling with delight as he watched those same people approach his table and plop down beside him. Now, he only looked back down at his lunch bag so he wouldn't have to see them navigate the tables to avoid coming near his.

It had been quite some time since he spoke to either of them. They couldn't understand what he was going through, and he couldn't understand why they wouldn't help.

They left him abandoned, like everyone else.

The large room was buzzing with conversations. Groups of friends, large and small alike, enjoyed one another's company. They gossiped and exchanged secrets. They listened to one another and told jokes. Every table had company and laughter, all except for his.

"...Let's go," he muttered under his breath.

He stood abruptly from his lonely seat. The mangled figure that had been huddled between his knees was gone, but not far.

Craig was never far.

No one seemed to notice as he carefully navigated around their tables. No one noticed when he pushed past the wide double doors to the cafeteria and slipped into the hall. No one noticed him. No one at all.

He moved quickly through the guts of the building. The halls were barren and empty. The only sounds he heard were the squeaking of his old sneakers, and a pair of barefoot feet slapping against the tile behind him.

The lights flickered and cracked as he walked beneath them.

"Stop messing with me, would you," he demanded.

Those same footsteps continued from behind him. Tweek didn't stop to look back, and he paid little mind to the quite murmur of mischievous giggles that echoed through the hall. Giggles that were not Craig's, though they came from him.

Soon, Tweek found himself at a small emergency door that lead to the field behind the school. When he stopped and took a hold of the handle, the disembodied sound of slapping feet came to a halt behind him.

"Why are you so talkative today?" Tweek asked before finally turning around and gazing back into the empty hall.

There was nothing.

Huffing in exasperation, the teen shoved open the exit and snuck outside. He immediately felt a huge weight lift off of his chest the moment his sneakers landed on cement. Out there by the loading docks he was safe from everyone else.

Safe, but cold.

He zipped his green hoodie up to his chin and clutched his paper lunch bag in his hand.

After a few moments of walking along the brick wall of the school, he spotted who he'd been searching for.

A group of four sat in a row against the brick wall, huddled under the awning that sheltered another back door. He could faintly hear their music playing and see the smoke wafting off the ends of their cigarettes. They all wore dark clothes, and their hair was dyed to match.

They reminded him much of crows huddled together on a telephone line.

He wrapped his arms around himself as he approached, then offered a friendly wave hello.

"Ah. If it isn't Spooks," Michael, the tallest of the four, said. He tightened his black jacket around his torso before he took another long drag.

Tweek nodded slowly before joining the crows in their line. He sat down right where the awning cut away, which kept a good bit of distance between himself and them.

Most definitely, he was an outlier. A canary like himself didn't quite fit into their gothic flock, let alone their circle of friends. However, unlike the rest of the school, they didn't seem to be afraid of him. In fact, they embraced his weirdness with and odd interest no one else bothered to have.

"How's your demon friend today?" Michael asked between puffs of his cigarette.

"D-demon?! Craig's not a demon!" Tweek argued passionately. "He's creepy, but he's friendly!"

"Okay then," Michael said. "How's Casper?"

Tweek sighed as he again dug through his lunch bag for his half eaten sandwich. He never knew how to respond when they asked him questions like that. Usually, he'd just keep Craig and all the other ghouls to himself. Then again, he rarely talked to the living at all. He could never tell if he was being made fun of or not.

Conversations with the goths were no exception.

"Needy," he finally replied with a cracking voice.

He knew where the puffing warmth on his neck was coming from, and it wasn't the breeze. He counted each of Craig's breaths while he chewed on his sandwich.

"It's been a few days since you came to see us," another, very female, voice noted aloud. Tweek looked past Michael to find who'd spoken, Henrietta.

She was a carbon copy of the others when it came to her style. She wore a black halter top decorated in lace, along with an unzipped black hoodie. A black pair of jeans.

Black, black. Black, black. Black.

Tweek couldn't understand what was so great about such a listless color.

"Uh, yeah. We've been eating in the lunch room," he admits.

"Why?" Michael butts in. "The place is crawling with those petty conformists."

Tweek stopped to think for a moment. Why?

"To- try to feel normal, I guess," Tweek admitted quietly. "I'm sick of everyone being scared of me."

He pulled on the strings hanging from the holes in his pants. He still counted each breath Craig puffed onto the back of his neck.

One hundred seventeen. One hundred eighteen. One hundred nineteen.

"There isn't anything 'normal' about you, Spooks," Henrietta replied. She leaned forward to get a better look at the boy counting to himself. "Stop trying to blend in with all the maggots infesting this place. It's bad for your health."

"Yeah," Michael agreed as smoke rolled out of his nostrils. "Who gives two shits if the conformists don't like you, anyways? As if their thoughts aren't tainted by this disgusting society."

Pete and Firkle remained quiet, though they nodded their heads in silent agreement.

For the first time in a long time, Tweek felt touched.

The rest of the hour was spent rather quietly from Tweek's end. He just ate while listening to their chatter and weird music. His jaw synced his chews with the quiet rhythm of Craig's labored breathing puffing in his ear. He actually felt… good.

Meanwhile, back in the depths of the school building, Kyle sat at his own lunch table. It really wasn't much different than any other day that year. He and Kenny McCormick sat side by side across from Butters Stotch and Eric Cartman. Like Tweek, few words left his mouth those days. Most of his communication was limited by small smiles and few word sentences. He was always much too tired to engage himself in conversations with his friends or bicker with that lard-ass Cartman.

He swirled his fork in spaghetti while listening to the buzz between Cartman and Kenny. Butters was also too absorbed in reading a copy of that day's newspaper to pay much mind.

"You know, I never liked that movie much. The acting was shitty and the monster was cheesy as hell," Eric said with his nose upturned.

"The monster wasn't scary, no, but who cares if the acting was good. The chick was hot as hell," Kenny said with a small smirk. "I mean damn, you saw that sex scene, right?"

"Wow, you guys!" Butters suddenly exclaimed, interrupting a rare moment in which Eric and Kenny weren't trying to tear one another's throats out. " There's a story about the shadowman in the papers again."

Kenny and Eric both stopped dead conversation. The heavier of the two rolled his eyes in disinterest.

They weren't surprised by what Butters told them.

Everyone at the table had already heard the story before. In fact, everyone in South Park had. It was happening for years, after all. Since they were still kids, even. Every article was the same retelling of the same phenomena they'd known all their lives.

"Oh, come on, Butters. Shadowman isn't real. He's just some dumb story our parents told us so we'd shit ourselves so bad we wouldn't sneak out at night," Cartman blathered before taking a bite of his pizza.

"O-oh yeah? Then how do ya explain all the holes?" Butters argued quickly. "They're huge and they've been showing up forever!"

"God damn it, Butters. Animals. Animals dig up the ground all the freaking time. You expect everybody to believe they're made by some psycho ghost?"

Kyle huffed to himself as he soaked up the banter.

Shadowman.

They said he was the ghost of a man who'd drown in Stark's Pond. A bitter, angry man who found someone else's cock down his wife's throat when he came home an hour early. A savage, psychotic man who confronted his wife about what he'd seen with the jagged blade of a hunting knife.

He didn't stop with her, though. After all, who could be so heartless as to separate children from their mother? One by one, he snuck into their rooms to ensure they'd met the same fate. All four of his own.

And, depending on the storyteller, he killed the family dog, too.

After chopping them up into pieces, he stuffed heavy, bloody bags into the back of his truck. He drove to Stark's Pond to do what all psychotic murderers do: dispose of bodies.

However, his plot was foiled when said truck mysteriously veered off of the road and plummeted into the murky waters. His evidence was indeed disposed of, along with himself, as they sunk to the muddy bottom.

The story wasn't over, though. Every night since, he came out of the lake to finish what he started. The black, eight foot tall, phantom littered the waterline and woods alike with deep holes to hide the pieces of his dismembered family members.

And, as the story goes, if you caught him in the act, he'd dispose of you, too.

They all had seen hundreds of his holes over the years. Everyone who went to Stark's did. They even found one big enough for Kenny to lay in, despite the mud and worms.

However, not one of them ever caught a glimpse of the infamous shadowman. Not even Kyle. He definitely sensed presences there, ones that made him nervous, but that's as far as he'd gotten. Then again, he tended to try to avoid that place.

"Well, you know what," Butters said confidently as he held the newspaper out before him. "Just listen to this, since you don't believe me!"

He held the paper up to his face and read aloud the headline that changed everything: "Shadowman Caught on Camera."

Being the rebel he was, Butters turned the large page and skipped ahead to the very last paragraph.

"Whoa!" He exclaimed before clearing his throat and reading the paper for everyone to hear. "Here for the first time, local fisherman, Ricky Malcomsin, has caught photographic evidence of Stark's Shadowman! He captured this ghostly image at around 11:00pm while boating with his son - Oh hamburgers, would you look at that!"

The whole table shifted close to get a look at the ghost that's haunted their imaginations since childhood. Even Kyle stood up to follow Kenny around the table and eyeball the evidence.

It was definitely the shore of Stark's. They recognized the woods well. The image was clear, mostly. There was just one exception.

Kyle's eyes widened when they took their fill of a black mass retreating into the trees. That in itself wouldn't have been very impressive to him. What was impressive was the amount of orbs. They were dim, circular lights that seemed to be retreating through the trees along with the dark specter.

Everyone else continued conversation as Kyle stared intensely at the small square on the paper.

"Geez, I guess people are offering money for information and pictures and stuff," Butters uttered more to himself than his friends.

"Of course they are," Kenny replied. "Someone's been ripping up the ground around Stark's forever. The park rangers are probably sick of having to fill all those holes in."

Kyle suddenly felt overwhelmed with emotion. His chest heaved slightly, and he suppressed the urge to cry. There was something there in that place he always feared. He knew that for years, but that article… it made it feel all too real to him.

"Shit. I wonder how much they'd pay for pictures like that," Cartman said while stroking his chin.

"I don't like that look on your face, Eric," Butters said while folding up the paper.

"Really, though, just think about it! They're offering _money _for a picture, right? Now, think about how much we made if we got video. No, no! If we caught it!" Cartman was nearly foaming out the mouth with possibilities.

Kenny swallowed hard and played with his lunch. Pizza, which Kyle purchased on his behalf. Honestly, he would really like to go. A ghost hunt in the woods is just the kind of thing he found fun in, but he knew some things were more important.

"Sounds fun and all," Kenny interrupted before leaning back in his chair. "But how in the hell are you expecting to find that thing, let alone catch it? If it turns out Shadowman is real, the last thing you'd want is to catch him trying to hide body parts."

"Yeah! And you don't even believe in him!" Butters added with a twisted expression.

"Oh, please. If he is real, he's just some guy in a robe trying to scare people. If he's not, we'll throw a robe on Butters and film him stumbling around in the woods."

"H-hey!" Butters protested. "I'm not even tall enough!"

"So," Kenny scoffed, "our options are either playing Scooby-Doo in the woods at night or staging a hoax. No thanks."

"Oh, come on. Usually you'd be itching for a little adventure - especially if it meant we'd make money. Don't tell me playing babysitter for the Jew turned you soft."

"He is _not_ by babysitter. I don't need anyone to take care of me," Kyle snapped ferociously before Kenny could get a word in. He crossed his arms and huffed. It gave the opposite effect of what he was pinning for.

"Prove it," Cartman challenged, eyes narrowing and grin widening. It was hard to get under Kyle's skin those days. Eric was not about to pass up an opportunity to push his buttons.

"F-fine!" Kyle hissed. "I'll come on your pissy little adventure."

Kenny furrowed his brows in worry. "Kyle, the last thing you need is to get caught up in Cartman's bullshit right now."

"I can make decisions for myself," the redhead mumbled under his breath. He took a big bite of his lunch, as if that would exempt him from having to say anymore.

"Ey, you heard the man, cum stain. Ginger wants an adventure. Who am I to deny him of that?" Eric butt in, obviously more giddy than neither Butters or Kenny felt comfortable with.

There was one undeniable truth about their group: If Cartman was excitedly scheming, something was going to go wrong.

"Great, then," Cartman uttered before ripping open his milk carton. "Meet me and Butters there tonight. 9pm, sharp. This time tomorrow, we'll be famous."

"Tonight? Dude, it's going to be pouring down rain," Kenny objected.

"Psh, you know we aren't the only ones who thought of this. The promise of money is all over the papers. If we go in the rain less people should show."

He was good at plotting, Kyle had to give him that much. Still… even he couldn't deny the sinking feeling in his stomach.


	3. The Circle

They say there are children in the woods. I hear them singing for you:

www . 8tracks . C 0 m / earily/oculus

* * *

><p><strong>Oculus<strong>  
>Chapter 2; <em>The Circle<em>

His limbs felt chilled like he'd just been shoved into a freezer.

His body felt suspended in a fixed place in time.

He could move and jerk about, but he never made contact with anything. He could open his eyes, but all he saw was a brownish black gradient of an abyss.

He was floating in a void. Every part of him was desperate for warmth as he struggled to breathe in. As he kicked and thrashed he heard familiar sounds. It was a muddy and distorted sloshing.

It was then he realized not only was he floating, but he was wet.

Panic set in when he finally gasped, only to be met with a throat full of ice cold water. He moved closer to the bright brown beams of color. Despite this, he knew he wouldn't make it to the surface conscious.

In the moment he had that terrible revelation a large pair of hands broke through the shining rays of ripples. His heart leapt out of his chest with relief.

They grabbed his wrists. He joyously expected to be heaved up out of the dark pit, but his rejoicing gave way into horrified shock. Those hands tightly wound themselves around his throat, and then pressed him back down deeper into the water.

He was so close to the surface. He could see distorted colors dancing in the chaos of the water. In fact, he could almost make out the face of his attacker.

Almost.

He gasped in a painful mouthful of water, which proved his undoing. His vision blurred, and his lungs burned like hot iron against his insides.

His body lurched in his sheets. He took in another gasp for air, and, thankfully, his lungs filled with it.

"Oh, Jesus. Oh, Christ," Tweek cried out.

Ripples of relief waded through his flesh when he realized he was in his room. However, the happiness didn't last long. Yet again, that same terrible dream left him awake and shaking in his bed.

Sleep was impossible ever since Craig snuck into the window a week prior. His dreams were plagued by nightmares. Nightmares that left him so petrified he tried to avoid sleep all together, not that he got very much of it beforehand.

He'd missed a lot of school because of it. Despite his fear of sleep he took to lying in bed for hours on end. Hours on end with no interruptions from David, the man in the attic, oddly enough.

Maybe David's absence had something to do with the breathing that still lingered in the air. That heavy, throaty breathing.

He heard it all the time, as if Craig was still clawing away at the underbelly of his bed. However, there was nothing there.

He rubbed his forehead with small hands and took to chanting about how much pressure it all was. It was the only thing the child could do to spare himself from violent sobbing.

He'd been crying a lot that week. Usually, his mother would hear and come into his room. She'd sit with him and sing his favorite lullaby: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

That particular night, though, he was alone. His parents were sleeping soundly in their room down the hall. He knew for sure no one would hear him, so he let it come bubbling out.

His eyes became wet; his pillowcase did, too.

The tiny muscle thumping in his chest was breaking. He felt so isolated, and he still was missing Craig. He tried and tried so hard to find him. He looked through the closet, under his bed, and even went up in the attic in hopes of coming across him. However, all he found were a few old pairs of socks and an oddly spooked David. There was no Craig. Not anywhere, despite the fact that Tweek could still occasionally hear his labored breathing.

A sob broke out of him.

He pressed his face hard into the fluff of his pillow to conceal his wretched wailing. It all just hurt so badly. Too badly.

It was then an odd sound cut through his cries. A disembodied murmuring floated through the room. The faint sound let centipedes loose under Tweek's skin.

It was humming.

Just like the heavy breathing that plagued his bed, it didn't seem to have a source. It mimicked the tune his mother would sing when shed caught him crying, though it most definitely did not sound like her.

It was quivering and small, but shrill like nails scraping against a chalkboard.

"Twinkle, twinkle, little star."

Voices echoed throughout his room like a children's choir.

"Up above the world so high."

In his fear, the little boy reached down beside his bed to fetch his light up stuffy turtle. He knew the light wouldn't deter them. It never stopped David's shadowy figure from standing at the foot of his bed, but it always brought him the littlest bit of comfort.

He leaned down a little farther with tiny fingers outstretched.

Something small and cold brush against his lax hand. However, he didn't have the chance to pull away. He laid in confused and terrified silence as freezing cold fingers interlaced with his own and gently squeezed.

"Like a diamond in the sky."

The hand belonged to something beneath his bed.

He pushed fear aside. The boy bit down on his lip as he squeezed back. The skin was chilled and damp like wet paper. He could easily feel every hard bone hiding beneath it, though he couldn't find the rhythmic throb of a heartbeat.

There was just cold and quivering meat.

"Craig," Tweek whispered, absolutely sure of who he was touching.

The cold hand trembled, and Tweek squeezed tighter, as if he could warm it with his own.

It was then, from the darkness under his bed, he heard one sentence. It didn't sound like it was coming from one person, but rather the plethora of young children who'd been trying to sing him to sleep.

"It's so cold."

Their raspy voices whimpered in unison. Tweek thought that if he listened carefully enough, he could make out one that sounded particularly familiar.

"You can come up under the blankets," Tweek still offered hopefully, despite his friend's grotesque form.

"It's so cold," was the only reply he'd gotten in return.

It made him frown deeply.

"How do I make you warm, then?"

Just like that, the fingers he was clutching so tightly to slipped away from his grasp and disappeared underneath his bed.

…

Rain as thick as black oil pounded on their heads. The soles of their shoes sank deep into wet ground. Lighting cracked across the black sky and thunder roared like an ancient behemoth. They knew it'd be raining, but they hadn't expected such a storm. Still, thanks to Kyle's stubbornness, he and Kenny made their way towards their rendezvous point: The old bathrooms of Stark's Pond.

It was a good spot for spying on the pond, Kyle had to give his friends that much. Though he wished they picked somewhere a little less… _rancid_ to stake out in. His discomfort was only pushed towards deeper levels when he sensed an ominous shift in the air. The closer they walked towards the darkened woods the higher Kyle's hair stood on end.

His slender fingers gently brushed against a yarn bracelet tied around his wrist.

"Sure you wanna go through with this?" Kenny asked loudly through the sounds of the storm as they came upon the rickety shack of a bathroom.

Kyle paused a short moment as if he might be reconsidering. Though he ended up nodding his head with resolve. There was obvious doubt in Kenny's eyes. No matter how interesting Cartman's newest escapade seemed, he couldn't shake the feeling that such an adventure wasn't good for Kyle.

Not then, when he was already having such trouble healing.

"Don't worry, Kenny," Kyle assured with the smallest of smiles. "I can handle it. Besides, when have any of us ever seen shadowman? We'll probably just dress up poor Butters and call it a night."

Kenny allowed a small frown to break through. Kyle didn't see it as he pulled open the door to the bathroom. Well, it looked more like a shed than a bathroom, both inside and out. The walls were constructed from the tin roof of an old barn. The wooden frame was just the same, and the plywood floor was covered in dirt and filth. Luckily, there were at least stalls shielding their eyes from the horror of the filthy commodes.

The first thing they noticed when they stepped into the shoddy building was Eric Cartman leaning up against the shack-like structure's wooden frame. He was fiddling with a rather expensive looking camera and didn't bother to look up at the pair as they entered.

"Ah, I see you guys decided to show, after all," Eric said. He was trying to sound uncaring, but Kenny caught the small rise of excitement hidden under his drawl demeanor. "Good to see you finally found your ballsack, Kyle."

"Yeah, whatever," Kyle responded in a mutter. All the spunk the redhead had at lunch had yet again vanished.

Eric would just have to pry harder to get a rise out of him, he supposed.

"H-hey, don't mess around with it like that," Butter pleaded as Cartman mindlessly fiddled with the camera. "If you mess it up- oh, gosh, I'd be grounded forever."

After Butters and Eric were finished bickering, they set to work. The front door was propped open with a large rock so they could keep a lookout, though Butters had to set up the night vision on his father's camera. "He was really into photography for a while," Butters explained as he scrolled through a menu on the screen. Though that's all he said before blathering about how scared he was of being caught with it.

Night wore on as well as the angry storm. The only sound that cut through its persistent pounding were their own echoing voices. Kyle and Butters lost interest with the steak out about an hour in. They huddled together in a lump on the nasty floor to watch Eric and Kenny take turns with the camera. No shadowman mysteriously appeared to tear up the wet earth, and Eric's frustration was steadily growing.

"Well, I guess this isn't going to be as fun as I hoped," he grumbled before passing the camera to Kenny. Kyle and Butters watched through the beams of their flashlights as he made his way towards a backpack propped up on a wooden ledge. With a loud zip, Eric yanked the bag open to proudly reveal his plan B: a large black trench coat.

"What do you think, Butters? Does it look about your size?" he questioned with the cock of his brow.

"O-oh, hamburgers," Butters squeaked. "I don't wanna wear that thing! I will never get ungrounded if my parents find out I'm even out here! I don't wanna know what they'd do if I stage a hoax!"

"Yeah, yeah, we're all very concerned," Eric sighed while holding the coat open. "Now get over here."

"Holy fucking shit, there is no way," Kenny blurted.

"What? What is it?" Eric asked, distracted from Butters.

"Holy fucking horse shit!"

Frustrated, Kyle lurched up off the floor and practically jogged to his friend. Kenny shoved the camera into his chest and pointed out the door.

"Look," he demanded with his eyes wide.

Before the redhead could even glance into the camera Butters and Eric were gathered around him to stare at the screen. He pointed it back out the door and slowly scanned the wilderness.

Kyle's mouth dropped open in utter disbelief.

There in the wind and rain stood a man. He was close enough to the outhouse that Kyle could make out the hood on his head and the long, pointed tool at his side. Could this really be it? By some stroke of unfathomable fortune did they really happen upon the demon of Stark's Pond? The thought made his heart rattle in his chest like rusted nails in a tin can.

"Whoa!" Butters whispered shrilly. He jammed his finger towards the camera's display, as if to rub the image in Eric's face. "See, it's him! I told you he was real! O-oh, hamburgers, I sure hope he doesn't find us in here."

"Find _us_?" Cartman said with a proud air of determination that made Kyle feel beyond uncomfortable. "It's us who found him. You guys ready?"

"Wait, you were fucking serious about catching that thing?" Kyle snapped as harsh wind scraped against their shelter. "We don't know who this guy is or what the fuck he's doing out here. You got him on tape, that's enough."

"Well, fine then. I see some of us aren't man enough to see all of this through," Cartman said with a shrug and a sigh. "Well, for anyone who's still got a ballsack: The plan is we take off that hood of his. We get his face on tape, and its KFC every night for the rest of the year."

Kyle believed Eric was overestimating just how much fame and fortune such an encounter would give them.

"Um, great plan and all, but what if shadowman really is what people say? Or even if he's just a big mean guy in a coat? I d-don't wanna get cut up and buried!" Butters tried to reason. He was still watching the camera intensely. His hands gripped at the thing even though Kyle still hadn't let go. It was hard not to eyeball the massive figure hacking away at the ground.

"He's like twice as big as all of us. Not to mention he's got a shovel," Kyle muttered in agreement.

"Guys, it ran from the guy in the newspaper just 'cause he saw it. We all go after him, we'll catch him for sure. Trust me."

That image from the newspaper. It flashed through Kyle's mind and left him feeling woozy. There were orbs littering that image; the tiny souls that were following shadowman through the trees. Even if it was a flesh and blood human being, he feared trying to catch it was a crime that would not go unpunished.

"Listen, we need to just lea-" Kyle didn't have time to finish expressing his blatant doubt. Eric snatched the camera out of Butters's hand and bolted full speed out the shack door.

"Eric, wait!" Butters tried to insist, but the chunky teen was already shuffling across the grass and towards the edge of the woods.

By instinct, Kyle and Kenny both jolted up to go after their idiotic friend. They ran out into the storm as Butters trailed behind, shouting about how bad of an idea all this was.

Their flashlights shined through the veil of blackness and rain. Their boots squished in pockets of mud and cloudy puddles. They could see Cartman's back, and the looming creature he was running towards.

The massive black figure let out a terrified screech, and bolted into the forest at a nearly inhuman speed.

Cartman's simple plan quickly mushed together into a terrible mess. The woods were too dark to keep track of everyone. Even their flashlights weren't good in the violent weather. Kenny ended up in the lead, not even realizing Eric had already ran out of breath and fallen far behind him and the others. Butters was beside the nimble blond as Kenny hurled himself over tree branches and shrubs to keep up with the retreating monster.

Butters; not so nimble.

In his effort to keep up he didn't pay enough attention to where his feet were stomping. Just like that, he lost his footing. Twigs snapped like firecrackers and he let out a strangled yell as he went tumbling into a thorn bush.

"God fucking damn it, Butters! Kenny, Kyle, don't let it get away. Go! Go after it!" Eric shouted urgently. "I'll get Butters!"

Without a second thought, Kenny kept running. Bewildered, Kyle quickly chased after him.

"Kenny, no!" he tried to reason with a scream.

They weaved around trunks of tall trees as Kenny tried to catch up to the shadow they could still just barely see retreating into the darkness. However, Kyle's years in track began to show. He proved agile enough to get right up on his friends tail. He rammed right into him, sending both of them tumbling harshly into the dirt.

"Are you fucking crazy?!" Kyle demanded as he stumbled to his feet. "Chasing the shadowman through the woods- you've lost your fucking mind! Who knows what that- that _thing_ really is! For God's sake-"

"Dude, look," Kenny whispered.

Kyle's infuriated gaze shifted up to a tree. It was just like all the others, really. Thin, tall, and covered in brown bark. However, there was something rather peculiar that set it apart from the rest.

A nail had been driven right through the chest of a teddy bear, pinning it against the bark. There were others, as well. Stuffed animals, baby dolls, and toy trucks alike all laid in a heap at its roots.

"Shit, there is no way that's real," Kenny said as Kyle stepped forward to get a better look. "That's just… Wow, Sick..."

Something was beckoning him to reach out and touch the impaled teddy bear. He couldn't resist.

"Kyle don't touch that, holy shit," Kenny shouted before grabbing his friend's hand and walking him a few steps away from the odd thing. "We were right- this was a bad idea."

Kyle swallowed hard, but the unsettling feeling in his chest was only made worse by the faint rumbling of thunder in the distance. The rain couldn't get to them well through the canopy of leaves above them, but the storm wasn't letting up.

"We'll come back in the day time to get a better look, okay? Let's get outta here," Kenny uttered.

Kyle nodded absentmindedly, but Kenny had to practically drag him away from the toy-covered tree.

They could see the beams of their friend's flashlights through the curtain of wood and leaves. They shined theirs back.

The redhead again reached down to fiddle with his bracelet. They walked side by side back down the path they came from. If the swaying trees and flashes of lightning weren't enough to put Kyle on edge, the air had dropped so cold he could feel it seep into his lungs with each breath. His skin was tingling, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood straight up on end.

"Kenny, do you feel that?" Kyle nearly whimpered.

When Ken didn't answer, Kyle turned towards him.

"Aren't you at least-" he was stopped dead. His flashlight was shining where Kenny should have been, but all he saw were the trees.

No Kenny.

No anyone.

"Kenny!" Kyle shouted. His heart was suddenly pounding so hard in his chest he thought it might explode. "Ken, where are you?!"

Leaves crunched under his boots as he tracked back towards the mysterious tree decorated with toys. He didn't want to go back there, but Kenny couldn't have just vanished in thin air. He had to be somewhere nearby.

As he tried to track down their path, he realized nothing looked familiar. The trees and bushes somehow morphed, or he'd wandered onto the wrong trail. He stood still as he tried to work it out in his head. The panic didn't truly set in until he realized he could no longer see Eric and Butter's flashlights through the trees.

"Cartman, Butters!" he screamed as loud as he could. He was hoping his friends might yell back, but he was only met with a silence so eerie it left his skull buzzing.

There were no chirping crickets or hooting night owls. Not even the yellowing leaves rustled in the wind. In fact, the storm seemed to have vanished just as Kenny had.

The snapping of a single twig cracked through the trees. He shined his flashlight into the foliage.

"Kenny?" He questioned softly.

There was more rustling. The sound of humming oozed out from between the thin tree trunks and onto Kyle's path. There seemed to be a chorus chiming a quiet tune. The sound of feet scuffing against the autumn ground also bounced around inside his skull. There was only one path that seemed familiar to him, and the voices were dancing on it.

He reached to his wrist and rubbed his bracelet for comfort. It gave him the assurance he needed, but his legs still wobbled and his breath became rapid as he turned off his flashlight.

He didn't want to go without the light helping to guide him forward, but he didn't want to risk being seen. Stay low. Stay quiet.

He pushed past small trees and prickly bushes as he let his thumping chest guide him towards the echoing sound. It seemed to be coming from every direction.

The low branches of a thorn bush grabbed onto his pant leg, digging its sharp edges through the cloth and into him. He hissed and tried to untangle himself with a hard yank. He stumbled over the bush and fell face first in the dirt. Puffing, he wiped his face and gazed up through the tall weeds he'd landed in.

The breath was sucked right out of him.

Through the grass and ivy he caught a glimpse of feet. Many pairs of small feet. They were nearly impossible to see through the dark of night, but they were there.

Bouncing playfully.

The quiet laughter and unsettling tune he'd been hearing before was all too clear now.

There were children, and they were holding hands. Up to a dozen, maybe. He was too scared to count heads.

They were formed to a circle, dancing as they held onto one another. He quieted his breath the best that he could.

A mass lurched in the center of their circle. It rose from the ground like a small, black, hill. What was most unsettling was to watch it shutter. An intense feeling of sorrow enveloped Kyle's being when he watched it try and fail to take a form.

Through the ambiance of a playground full of happy noise, he heard soft sobbing.

The children echoed playful laughter back to the dark form's despaired sounds. It seemed to be trying to join them - trying to play with them.

Their song broke away into mush in Kyle's mind. They shuttered and swayed like pictures on old film, and the thing in the center of their joyful laughter finally rose like a black sheet.

Like it was also a child, it swayed with them.

He wanted to run away. Whatever that thing was starting to take shape. It was very dark, but very human. Its head seemed too heavy for it to hold up. Its movements were slow and lagged like that of a zombie. It stumbled and shook on its own two feet, and he found himself thankful it was looking away from him.

This was not the shadowman he and his friends chased through the woods.

He felt in his guts that it was something far worse.

He very slowly got to his feet. His flashlight was still off, though he was holding it so tightly his knuckles were turning white. His head was filling with so many pictures. Pictures of faces. Pictures of little boys with light hair and blue eyes. He stepped back and away from the ghostly figures and their play.

Much to his horror, he backed into the same thorn bush that tripped him. It rustled loudly, and Kyle's heart stopped when the children's playful noises seized.

His eyes shot up towards the figures. The stumbling zombie of a spirit slowly began to turn its head towards him. A god-awful cracking and snapping resonated from the thing's unsteady spine. Its body didn't budge, but its head kept turning.

He faced its grotesque form as he backed quickly away. He didn't want to risk turning his back to the gurgling monster. And, as its head finally turned to face him full on, he realized it was indeed just that.

A monster.

Two gaping holes were gouged out of its face where eyes should have been. Black, tar like grime oozed from the deformities. Its true horror wasn't revealed until the children ran away to hide. With pale, mud streaked legs it wobbled towards him. Jagged, long teeth protruded from its wide jaws so wildly it couldn't close its own mouth. Its feet left the ground, but it's many, many, spider like arms did not.

He let out a horrified shriek when it came barreling towards him.

He forced his way through bushes and weeds, all the while trying to keep his feet moving faster than the gurgling beast scrambling for him. The soles of his shoes slammed into dirt when he made his way back to the path, but he didn't stop running. It was screaming from behind him, and he felt tears of horror brim in his eyes.

"Eric! Kenny!" He screamed desperately.

Kyle shined his light wildly through the trees. He didn't dare to look back. He knew that twisted, shuttering thing was still coming for him. He could hear its knees and hands scraping along the dirt.

He fell.

His flashlight flew from his hand and smashed into the ground as he was pulled back by his ankle. Screaming and flailing, he kicked at the creature that'd ensnared him. The sharp tips of its fingers felt like needles piercing his flesh through his jeans.

"Kenny, help me!" He begged as tears streamed down his face. "Please!"

He kicked it and swore in agony as it clawed at him. As it pulled him closer and closer towards a gaping mouth of sharp teeth.

"Stan!"

The beast let out a pained cry and quickly fell away.

Kyle jumped to his feet, and didn't hesitate a moment to run off deeper into the woods. His cheeks were cold from the breeze chilling his tears. His jeans were muddy and ripped, and his hands were in the same shape.

All of him was aching down into his core, but he could hear that _thing _screaming in the distance. He couldn't stop.

Through the trees that flew by him he saw a yellow light. Without a second thought, he sped through thorn bushes and poison ivy towards a structure amidst the trees. It was a house. A single light shined through the back door. He was only a yard away from salvation when he heard the trees rustling violently.

He didn't stop when he heard the sickening thump of meat and bone slam into the dirt behind him. He didn't stop when he heard those same hands claw away at the ground to get to him.

He didn't stop.

Not until his feet banged along the rickety porch, and he threw open the door. He turned towards the creature only a second to slam the wooden slab in its face. The beast rammed headfirst into the rotting wood. Kyle grabbed a small metal knob and forced the rusted lock closed. The creature was not deterred. It only got more and more angry as it repeatedly rammed the door with its skull.

Kyle took a panicked look around. A kitchen. He was standing in a decaying kitchen. He pulled out his cellphone. His hands were shaking so badly he could hardly press the right buttons. Kenny. Kenny. He needed to call Kenny.

Just as he pressed on the familiar name, his screen went black.

"What?!" He nearly screamed to himself. "What? No, no. I charged this!"

Boots thumped against creaking floorboards. They weren't coming from the front porch where that creature was. It came from somewhere within the house, and it just kept coming closer.

"Fuck," he muttered. Upon the realization that the light he'd seen was a candle, he thought it best to hide. That house was surly condemned. Whoever or… _whatever_ lit that candle wasn't supposed to be there.

The footsteps grew dangerously clear. He quickly scrambled for the counter. Most of the cabinet doors had fallen off or broken. However, there were a few just good enough for a hiding place. He squatted down and quickly climbed into the nasty cupboard.

Kyle tried to slow his breathing and remain silent. Peering through the sliver of an opening between cabinet door and wood, he watched an odd scene unfold.

The doorknob leading into the kitchen turned and, with a loud creak, came open. There was a man behind it. He was ridiculously tall, from what Kyle could tell. His slender body was draped with a pitch black robe. The black was soiled with mud. The figure's face, however, was too high up for Kyle to see through his loose door.

It laid a soiled shovel down on the table across the dingy kitchen.

The Shadowman.

While Kyle gawked at the black figure the disturbing monstrosity that chased him to that house was still heaving itself at the locked door.

"You're so loud," the Shadowman complained in a whisper. It was so quiet, Kyle almost didn't hear it.

He watched from his hiding place as the black form ghosted across the room. Without making a sound, Kyle shifted to keep his limited gaze on what was happening. His breath caught when the Shadowman's black hands slid open the lock keeping the beast out. It was then the door busted open with a startling slam. That… _thing_ fell inside. Its wild limbs and distorted face slammed against the floor, and the Shadowman only sighed.

"Come here," he said, extending his arms out to the warped mass of flesh. Kyle just couldn't help but think he'd heard that voice before. It was so hauntingly familiar it scraped shivers up his trembling arms.

Kyle watched wide-eyed as long, pale arms grabbed at the Shadowman's broad shoulders. The creature hoisted itself up onto his body. Bones cracked and grinded as it wrapped its legs around his torso. While screaming bloody murder, the horrible beast shuddered up towards the man's face. To help calm the distressed thing in his arms, the tall, black mystery phantom sang aloud whilst bouncing his pint sized monster like a child. _"Twinkle, twinkle, little star. How I wonder what you are."_

The majority of said monster's fingers had been stripped of their flesh, and Kyle watched in horrid fascination as the eye-less beast reached its bones up towards the cloaked man's face.

_"Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky."_

It's once shrill shrieks were reduced to gentle coos. A face that was plagued by rows of jagged teeth showed nothing of the sort. Its multiple mangled limbs were gone, leaving behind only two arms and two legs. However, Kyle could see part its face through the crack, and its eyes remained gouged out of its head.

"There you go, all better, right?"

The tall figure didn't budge an inch. It just allowed the seemingly blind creature to knock off his hood and run its muddy hands all over his face. The tall man's lips had stopped moving, but his odd companion continued his song in a low, eerie hum.

Kyle tried desperately to get a look of the man's face. He squinted and carefully lowered himself down, which eventually granted him a sight that left him rattled with more questions than answers. A crooked nose slathered with smudges of mud, round, blue eyes, and a familiar mop of unruly blond hair. As the cloaked man- no, _boy_, turned away, he said a single thing to his mutilated friend that left their eavesdropper's mind buzzing.

"Come on, Craig."

Despite Kyle's burning curiosity, he laid low and silent. He dared not leave even after the odd pair left the kitchen and shut the door behind them. He stayed, and he waited, until he was absolutely sure he would not be caught leaving. The creaky cabinet door was slowly pushed open before he crawled out on his hands and knees.

The kitchen floor was covered in dirt and grime. He grimaced as he stood, and wiped the mess on his hands onto his jeans. The house was decrepit and falling apart. The wallpaper was peeling away and absolutely everything was covered in dust.

He walked calmly out the front door and off of the rickety porch. However, the moment the soles of his shoes hit dirt he ran as fast as he could. He found that his legs were still shaking, and his breath was heavy and rapid from everything he'd just been through. Still, he found the strength to jog back into the orchard of ominously tall pillars of wood. All the while he called out for his friends, hoping that they would hear him.

He didn't think he had any other chance of rescue. As long as he could avoid the ring of dancing children, he would be content.

"Kyle!" he heard someone scream, making _him_ scream.

Suddenly he was lifted off the ground and pulled into someone's arms, though he could only see their orange sleeve in the beam of their flashlight.

"Oh, holy shit, I thought we lost you out here!" Kenny shouted while squeezing him hard.

"Ah!… no, no, I'm… fine," Kyle whispered with his eyes still wide with fright.

His feet were back on the ground, but Kenny's hands were still on his shoulders. His friend was not so convinced.

Butters and Eric, who were standing behind him, didn't seem to be either.

"Oh, man, Kyle. You're shaking like a darned leaf," Butters said as he came quickly to his friend's side. "What happened out there?!"

Kyle shook his head to dismiss the question, though he didn't take another step. He let himself lean against Kenny, all the while still trembling from both fear and the nipping cold.

A hand wiped its chilly skin under his nose. Surprised, he looked up. A red blotch was smudged on Kenny's finger.

"Your nose is bleeding pretty bad. We're gonna take you home, okay?"

Kyle could only wordlessly nod.

Kenny looked over Kyle's head towards Eric who'd been standing a few feet away. He looked almost guilty, which Kenny felt fit.

He pointed a finger in the chunky teen's direction.

"No more of your schemes," he barked lowly. "_Ever_."

Eric didn't say anything as the group shifted and began to make their way back towards the pond. He only grumbled to himself in frustration. Honestly, nothing had really gone according to plan. He was hoping to get a few laughs in with Kenny, to see a glimpse of the Kyle he knew before the crash.

Not only did Kyle get lost in the woods (which sparked a screaming match between himself and Kenny), but the footage they captured was fucking useless. Despite night vision having been on the video was nothing but a solid black screen accompanied by broken sounds.

Damn fucking shit camera must have been busted.

At the head of the group, Kyle watched his and Kenny's feet step on yellow and orange leaves. They were wet and covered in brown sludge thanks to the storm. Still, the sight somehow helped him slowly recover.

"Kenny?" he whispered carefully.

"Yeah?"

"… what do you remember about Craig Tucker?"


	4. Mini-Monster

Heyo. I've been having issues with ff.n slicing and dicing my documents, so I'm sorry if some of the sentences are cut in half or words show up in weird places. I'm trying to make sure I fix all of them before I publish, but I might not catch them all. Just so you're aware. There were quite a few in the last chapter and I didn't catch them till later.

Also I might go back to later chapters as I'm writing this story and edit/change a few things here and there to keep the plot clean. I already went back and edited a little. I can guarantee I will again lol Especially since previous chapters were really choppy.

* * *

><p>Tonight the children sing: My Beloved Monster by Eels<p>

* * *

><p><strong>Oculus<strong>  
><em>Chapter 3; Mini-Monster<em>

The front door creaked open somberly. Mr. and Mrs. Tweak turned their heads towards the sound as two people stepped inside their home. One stood nearly as tall as their grandfather clock, while the other was more comparable to the height of a stool. The tallest tucked a piece of blond hair behind her hear. Her other hand was seized by the little girl beside her.

Tweek immediately recognized the people: Craig's mom, and his little sister, Ruby.

"Ah, Laura, I wasn't expecting you so soon," said Mrs. Tweak, or Cindy, as her friends called her.

Craig's mother nodded as Ruby took to staring at Tweek. The little boy fidgeted anxiously with his stuffed turtle.

"I'm sorry to drop by with such little notice," the woman by the door apologized weakly. "I just-"

"No, no, Laura," Cindy said with the shake of her head. "Our house is your house. Besides, I figured you'd want to pick it up."

Mrs. Tweak wafted across the room in her long green dress. She came beside Tweek and lifted a cardboard box off of the couch beside him. She gave the little boy a subtle yet stern look, as if to remind him there would be no talk of ghosts in Mrs. Tucker's presence. Tweek looked down at his turtle while playing with the fabric of its shell.

"Maybe we should have the children run along and play while we grownups talk," Laura suggested with a small smile. Tweek could easily tell it wasn't a real one.

"Oh! Yes, of course," Mrs. Tweak uttered while holding the brown square against her chest. "Tweek, darling, won't you take Ruby up to your room to play for a bit?"

Tweek curled up his nose at the suggestion. He liked Ruby, but, like all seven-year-olds, she could be a bit annoying with her games. Laura patted her little girl on the back to move her along. After a moment's hesitation, Ruby wordlessly scuttled over to the boy on the couch. Realizing there would be no way out of their awkwardly forced play time, he groaned.

"Okay, let's go," he muttered before pushing himself off the couch. Without another word, he sluggishly stomped towards the staircase. Ruby played with one of her stumpy pig tails in anxiousness, but trailed behind the other nonetheless. Laura kept her gaze locked onto the children, as if she was a mother rabbit expecting a hawk.

"Well, now," Tweek's mother said once the children were out of earshot. "This belongs to you."

She passed the brown box off to Laura, who held it against her chest and simply stared at the interlaced flaps of the top. She fingered the sharp edge for a moment in nervousness before finally opening it. Tweek's father, Richard, took a step closer as she shifted around in the cardboard.

"It's all we could find. I'm sure there are more clothes in the washroom, but all the toys and things he left are there," he said in gentle assurance.

Laura's bottom lip trembled as she reached her hand into the treasures against her chest. Toy race cars and pajama shirts seemed to be the only thing the box held. Her slender fingers found the blue fabric of a night shirt. _Red Racer_ was written across the front in red font, though it was hard to make out through her tears.

"Thank you," she offered slowly. Despite her efforts, a small sound of despair fell through the grieving mother's lips.

Slowly, Cindy stepped towards her friend. She offered all that she could; a gentle and understanding embrace. Laura gave into the comforting gesture. Feeling safe among friends, she allowed herself to break down into tremors of sobs.

As the parents mourned together below them, Tweek and Ruby sat in relative silence on his bed. It hadn't been the first time Ruby played in his room. However, their usual lightheartedness was rudely interrupted by Craig's absence. Neither of them even knew what to say without him there.

Ruby's blue eyes wandered around his room. She didn't hear the heavy breathing puffing between them. Neither seemed to notice the tall rabbit watching them from the far corner, either; the one in a fancy blue suit and tie. The one gawking at the pair with bulging eyes.

"What do you want to play?" The little girl asked while still playing with her pigtail.

"...I don't care," Tweek admitted softly.

"I brought my barbies," she said quietly. Without waiting to hear the boy's opinion, Ruby pulled her little backpack off her shoulders and into her lap. She rummaged around in her toys, and then laid one before Tweek.

"This is Stacy," Ruby said. "She's my favorite, because her hair is red like mine. You can play with her this time, though."

He picked the tiny doll up from the blanket to investigate as Ruby pulled another toy out from her backpack.

"And this is Janet," she uttered while running her fingers through the doll's blond hair. "She's Stacy's big sister. They fight all the time, but they love each other."

Ruby bumped her doll's face against the one in Tweek's hand. _"Muah!"_

With a small smile, Tweek gave in. "Okay, what are they going to do?"

"Sister tea party!" Ruby blurted with her arms up over her head. "Stacy is going to go to Janet's house, which is umm... Over there!"

Tweek backed up to put Janet where Ruby wanted, which was on his pillow.

"Okay, and now, um. oh!" Ruby turned around to fetch the plastic tea set from her backpack. However, Tweek tilted his head when the little girl stopped in silent confusion.

"How did you get here?" she questioned aloud before picking up yet another barbie that appeared on the bed behind her.

"Who?" Tweek asked with Stacy still clamped in his hand.

"Her!" Ruby announced as she presented the blue eyed baby boll to her companion. "She was my big brother's favorite. She stays in my closet… I didn't pack her."

Tweek felt prickles all along his spine. It felt like a cheese grater gnawing away at his vertebrate. The sudden chill that wafted over his body only fostered his fear.

"Let's put her back in the backpack," Tweek suggested quickly.

"No, but what if Craig wants to play?"

The knob of his closet door clanked as it jiggled. Ruby and Tweek looked up in startled silence as the latch clicked. The white door creaked an inch open. Tweek pressed himself against the wall in fear, but Ruby seemed smitten with the darkness. She slid down off of the bed and crept towards it.

"Ruby, no," Tweek demanded, but she wasn't paying attention to him.

Ruby took an unsure hold of the knob, and then leaned into the closet. Tweek was shaking with anxiousness as he watched the little one slowly lean further and further inside. She was squinting her eyes, as though she was trying to make out a face in the blackness. Once she saw it, whatever it was she saw, she let out the smallest bout of laughter. Her head moved to follow it, and her smile only grew wider the longer she stared.

"Ruby!" Tweek again spat. However, his worried pleas were met with deaf ears.

Overjoyed by what she was seeing, she practically threw herself into the closet. The door slowly pulled together behind her, though it left a sliver of black just wide enough to let the giggling out.

Both sets of giggling.

Tweek threw himself up off of the bed and stumbled to the door. When he went to grab the handle, it slammed closed. Ruby didn't seem to care, though. She just kept laughing as Tweek tried to yank open the door. No amount of twisting or pulling would make it budge. Terrified for Ruby, he scrambled out of his bedroom door. His feet thumped hard as he ran down the hall to the top of the stairs. All three of the adults standing in the living room noticed the little boy at the top stair. He was panting with one finger pointed towards his bedroom.

"What, darling, what is it?" Cindy asked as she took a step towards him.

Through his heavy breathing, Tweek said, "He shut Ruby in the closet and he won't open the door."

Cindy and Richard exchanged confused glances, but Laura didn't give the strange statement a second thought. She went barreling up the stairs and past the little boy. She was the wounded mother rabbit, and a hawk was swooping in. Her friends came quickly after her, along with their young son.

Laura shoved her way into Tweek's little bedroom, and then nearly tripped over her own feet as she raced towards the closet door. Laura grabbed the handle and pulled with a hard yank. It easily slid open. Inside was little Ruby, hugging a lump of clothes dangling from their hangers. Laura's brow pinched together in relief and confusion. Ruby was much too big for being carried around, but she reached in to pluck up her child anyway. She backed away from the darkness of the open closet with her only remaining child in her arms.

"Look, mommy!" the girl said in elation. She pointed into the sweaters and T-shirts with a chubby little finger. Her mom glanced towards that direction, but only for a disinterested second before she turned to leave. One long, trembling arm slowly slid out from between a pair of shirts. It reached for them, almost begging for them to come back. Though Ruby poked her head over her mother's shoulder and happily waved goodbye to the closet, Tweek was sure she couldn't see what he was seeing.

She surely wouldn't have been wearing such a smile if she saw the jutting, sharp teeth of the mouth trying to smile back. Tweek took a slow step towards the eyeless creature inhabiting his closet. It cried out miserably as Laura disappeared into the hallway, which made Tweek frown.

"I'm sorry... you scared me, or else I wouldn't have told on you."

The arm and the face both sank back into the closet. The white door loudly slammed behind it. Tweek jumped at the unexpected sound, but pressed his fingers reassuringly against the wooden slab.

"Don't worry, Craig... they'll be back again eventually."

**…**

Steam filled the little bathroom to the brim as hot water poured from the tap. It fogged the mirrors and Tweek's vision. The tiniest of smiles threatened to creep across his cheeks at the sight of the invitingly warm tub. He felt so grimy and gross. Maybe that's because he was always busy with grimy and gross things. Either way, warm bathwater cured all that, even if it was only temporary.

He sat down on the toilet and pulled off his socks. Their white fibers were sullied with dried mud, just like the legs of his pants. Mud and dirt were the causes of most of his trashed clothing. He supposed, though, that couldn't be helped much. He tossed the dirty garments to the floor. A sweat stained T-shirt and hole plagued pair of jeans added to the smelly pile. God, did he hate feeling so filthy.

He kicked aside the soiled black cloak on the floor to get to the sink, where he stared a moment at the person in the mirror. Oh, wasn't he a hot mess. Heavy blue half circles tugged at the edges of his eyes. His blond hair was sticking out at impossible angles and caked with, you guessed it: mud. He reached up in disgust and violently ran his clumsy fingers though the mess. As if that would help.

His hands shook as he scrubbed his crooked teeth. His chest was tight and his eyes were watery. It was hard to breath, though that was nothing new.

Those people in the woods. Their loud voices and quick footsteps echoed in his mind like his skull was an auditorium. So many people had came looking for him before, but few had ever caught a glimpse of him. He was too fast. He knew the woods too well. Still, last night he was too careless. Fuck, what if one of them saw his face? What if the cops were on their way to his house right that very moment? They'd been trying to snag him for years! God, how much jail time could someone get for vandalism?

He was breathing heavily, toothpaste foam lingering around his mouth like rabies as he struggled to calm his restless heart. He could practically feel every rapid bet forcing blood through his tight veins.

A giggle.

A quiet, innocent giggle bubbled from behind him. He wiped his mouth of his rabies and turned around, where he was met with a rather odd sight. Craig was floating in his bath water. His little puff ball covered head bumped lazily against the edges of the bathtub. He blew bubbles, and then giggled at them as they popped at the surface of the water. The tight wire slicing through Tweek's heart loosened, though only a little. He stepped towards the tub, and then kneeled down over the edge.

"What are you doing in there?" Tweek questioned gently. "You're gonna get all waterlogged again."

Craig rebelled with more happy bubbles, and Tweek finally smiled.

"Come on," Tweek said as he reached inside and wrapped his arms around the boy's mangled body. He carefully pulled the corpse out of the tub, though the little ghost wasn't so happy about that. He complained with whines as he reached towards the water.

"I'm sorry. I'd let you play in there, but you'll make my water gross."

Craig only continued to whine, in which Tweek responded: "You're thirteen, not five."

He sat Craig down on the toilet, and then grabbed a handful of toilet paper. Craig didn't fuss when Tweek wiped the grimy black tar oozing from his eye-holes. Tweek did that almost every day, for some weird reason. Craig was never sure why since it always came back anyway.

"There you go," Tweek uttered under his breath when he deemed the sopping, bruised skin properly wiped down.

He left Craig to entertain himself on the toilet when he made his way back to the bath. Craig just stared straight forward into blackness as he kicked his feet.

Humming contently, Tweek dipped his head back into the warm water. He figured Craig liked it for more than just fun, seeing as how he stuck like glue to anything that was warm._ Heating vents, fire places, the hoods of running cars…_ Tweek opened his eyes slightly when he heard a rustling in the wicker hamper beside the tub. _Sweaters._

The little thing took to rooting around in the old laundry. He was leaning over the edge of the hamper, wiggling his arms as he tried to reach the fabric in the bottom. His bloody finger bones left messes on everything he clawed at, but Tweek stopped caring about that a long time ago. The gruesome streaks always disappeared when Craig did.

Tweek was lathering his hair with shampoo when he heard a thump. Gazing back over towards the hamper, he only saw a little pair of feet wriggling around at the top before sliding down with the rest of him.

"Looking for your sweater?" Tweek questioned, though he knew he wouldn't get an answer back. At least not in the form of words.

A low, contented hum came from the bottom of the wicker basket, along with more rustling. One disturbingly long arm crept up from the top of the hamper. It swayed like a bare tree branch in the wind before the shaking fingers at its end finally collided with drywall. Its stretched muscles bent and flexed to pull Craig's limp body up out of the laundry basket. The arm wasn't attached to any of his proper sockets, no. It seemed to be jutting from his spinal cord instead.

Craig tightly held rainbow colored cloth against his chest as extra limbs seemed to sprout from him in every direction. With the help of a spare arm or two, Craig managed to get his head stuck in the colorfully knit cloth.

"You're lucky I'm not scared of spiders," Tweek muttered more to himself than to his ghostly companion.

Craig's mouth suddenly warped into a disturbing show of long, jagged teeth as he let out an ear busting screech. Tweek sighed and covered his ears as the tiny specter's convulsing body slid across the ceiling. His limbs clumped together in a tangled mess as he heaved himself into the bathroom closet. Tweek pulled the curtain partially closed, as such a hissy fit from Craig always equaled an unexpected visitor. Sure enough, a steady knocking came to the bathroom door.

"Tweek, you in there?" the familiar voice of his father questioned. The door creaked open only slightly, just enough for his voice to find its way in.

"Yeah, I'm in the bath," Tweek said before sinking deeper into the water.

"Ah! I was wondering if you'd like to have some family time with your mother and myself today. Help with dinner- watch some T.V.."

"I was actually thinking about going to the Tuckers'," Tweek admitted. He let his hands glide through the water as he waited for a response.

"Oh, oh, I see," His dad said from the doorway. "Your poor ol' mother and I will just have to spend time all by ourselves, then."

"Damn it, dad, don't guilt trip me," Tweek complained.

"No, it's fine, really. Just be sure to come visit us when were in the old folks home. You know, while you're busy taking care of the Tuckers."

"Pfft, whatever. I'll make it up to you guys tomorrow, how's that?"

There was a silence between them, followed by a low hum. Richard was thinking it over, though Tweek had already gone back to enjoying his bath.

"There_ is_ something you could do to make it up to us."

Tweek stopped what he was doing.

"Oh, what's that?" he could hear Craig's bloody fingertips scratching around in the closet. He was growing incredibly antsy.

"I have to take your mom to the dentist today… around like four," Richard explained as he tapped his foot against the floor. "Would you mind watching the shop a little while while we're out? Just for a few hours."

"hmm," Tweek chimed as if he had to think it over. "What'll I get for my trouble?"

"The best son of the year award and my undying gratitude," came the reply.

"Annnnd," Tweek practically sang as he kicked his feet up on the edge of the tub. "Free coffee and donuts?"

"Pfft, fine, if food is worth so much more than your parent's pride and love."

"Hey, pride and love doesn't feed my caffeine addiction. It's sad, but I don't make the rules."

By that point, Craig had been throwing a fit. If there was one thing he hated, it was older men. If there was one thing he hated more, it was older men alone with Tweek. Loving fathers were hardly an exception. Hearing the spitting from the closet, Tweek decided to cut conversation short before Craig _really_ threw a tantrum.

"Anyway," he uttered while wiping his sopping hair back. "You got yourself a deal."

"Awesome! Tell Laura and Thomas hi for me!" Richard sang before pulling the bathroom door closed. Tweek only rolled his eyes. Richard loved to con him into stuff. Especially when it came to the shop.

The low, unpleasant rumbling from Craig lasted long after Richard had left the room. Tweek was already toweling himself off when the thin closet door slowly crept open. A little face peered out at him, plagued by jagged rows of snaggled teeth.

"He's gone, you freak," Tweek said before throwing his towel at the door, hitting the little ghoul in the face. "I understand being scared of strangers, but you're scared of people we literally see every day."

Craig receded into the closet, stealing Tweek's towel. Probably to sniff it or something weird.

With a sigh, Tweek got to work pulling on his clothes. He didn't really have time for Craig's foolishness. Once clothed, he made the short walk to his bedroom. The attic door was sealed shut, oddly enough. Usually David was out and about by that time of day. Nevertheless, He grabbed his green hoodie off of his bed post, then he was off. His parents offered goodbyes as he stepped out of the living room and onto the front stoop. He accidentally banged his head on one of his mother's wind chimes, as he usually did when he was leaving the house. It let out an ugly clatter as he walked away towards the sidewalk.

His chest felt tight. The kids in the woods. He knew all of them, considering he'd seen them nearly every day since he was in preschool. He recognized them even through the darkness and pouring rain. They were loud, obnoxious, and always stirring up trouble. Always. If they saw him- if they knew his secret- the whole town would soon enough. The police would come and send him to juvie for all the property damage, he just fucking knew it. Then he would never get to finish what he started.

When he finally came to the Tuckers' residence his anxiety was only made worse. He was greeted by an army of lawn gnomes. He glared at the little concrete creatures as he stepped around them. He was ever so tempted to kick one over, though that would probably only result in a broken toe. God, how Tweek hated gnomes.

He made it around the pint sized army and onto the deck, where he tapped at the front door with his knuckles. He ran a hand over his aching ribs with a grimace. Today would be one of those days.

He knocked again, harder that time.

"Oh!," he heard the voice of an older woman utter from somewhere inside the house, "just a moment, please!"

However, the door come immediately bursting open. Tweek nearly tumbled back onto the deck.

"Tweek!" A young, redheaded girl greeted excitedly. "Why did you wait so long to come back over?!"

Tweek smiled weakly, and then stepped inside.

"I've been busy," he replied. "Where's mom?"

"She's in the kitchen," Ruby said before grabbing Tweek's hand and pulling him through the living room. He heard tiny feet following after them, accompanied by overjoyed laughter.

Craig loved being home.

The footsteps warped in front of them. Tweek saw a small, translucent flash of black as Craig went running into the kitchen to greet his mother. She never felt it when he ran up to wrap his arms around her, but it never stopped him from doing it. Laura was sitting at the table, fidgeting with a metal mess of gears. She looked up from her work, and then smiled at the sight of Tweek. She paid no heed to the bloody little bones tugging at the edge of her dress. She couldn't feel them, no matter how hard Craig pulled.

"Nice to see you've finally stopped by again," she uttered while pushing her chair back. A wall clock laid out on the table before her. It was broken down into bits, but she seemed to know what she was doing when she was piecing it back together.

"You guys act like I wasn't just here last week," Tweek said as he fidgeted with his fingers.

He tried not to stare at Craig as he crawled up underneath Laura's chair. It was always hard to pretend like Craig wasn't there, especially when he was doing hilariously ridiculous or cute things. Which, to Tweek, was pretty much always.

**…**

Tweek Tweak.

Kyle knew that name well.

He was the blond kid in his English class; the one who was always shaking and twitching. The one who, as far as Kyle knew, didn't have a single friend in the world. Kyle occasionally spotted him at lunch, sitting alone at the table farthest away from every other living creature. Kyle always pitied him. He heard the songs kids used to make up to bully the boy with. He'd seen him shoved in the hallway and heard the venomous words people spat about him. No one believed when Tweek told them the things he'd seen. The things that he believed in. The things about Craig. Not even Kyle remembered what they were. It was a very long time since Tweek spat shaky rants about a missing little boy no one else seemed to care about, but he knew the words only stopped because no one was listening. No one would help.

Kyle wanted to help.

However, the cruel treatment of Tweek Tweak was a terrifying example of what Kyle's life would become if he dared to tell the truth. If anyone knew Kyle believed Tweek, because he had seen them too. He feared reaching out to Tweek would somehow make him like the boy; like the peculiar outcast who lost touch with reality. So, he watched from a distance as the lonely kid spiraled into secluded insanity.

Maybe it was fate that brought him to the pond the night they'd encountered the Shadowman. There was no doubt in Kyle's mind who owned the gruff, familiar voice he'd heard call out to the little monster. Any uncertainty he had was wiped away the moment he heard the word Craig. Shadowman was real, and Kyle would see him again in English class.

"Hey, Kyle," Butters uttered, snapping him out of his mindless trance. "You okay, there? Why, you really haven't said so much lately."

Kyle offered a reassuring smile, the best one he could muster, before nodding his head. "I'm fine, just worried about English…"

Well, it wasn't a lie.

A silver bell rang above Kyle and his group of friends as they filed through the door of the local coffee shop. Butters went there nearly every other day thanks to how much he loved all their silly pastries. And, if Butters was there, one could only expect his entourage of friends to be trailing behind him. It's just how it was.

The goth kids seemed to always have the same idea, seeing as how they lingered at the booth nearest the counter nearly every time Kyle had been there. They'd sip on coffee, glance up at him and his friends, and then mutter lowly about 'conformist maggots'. He didn't care much for them in the first place, but they annoyed him with their unoriginal, condescending insults.

Unfazed by the goths' low chatter, Butters scampered up to the counter. He was ooing and awing at the assorted treats displayed in glass cases as Eric and Kenny, of course, drooled right beside him. It was then, as his friends were making eyes with a pair of iced donuts, Kyle heard something that made him feel like his head was just dunked in a bucket of ice water. A voice.

A chillingly familiar voice.

"How may I help you?" was all it said, but the gruff sound was embedded in his memory.

His friends weren't much fazed by the tall blond boy behind the register. He looked much different since he swapped out his black robe for a green apron, but without a doubt in Kyle's mind; it was the same voice. It felt like long nails dragging over his skin as he stared at the person. It was so rare for Tweek to be the one behind the counter Kyle hadn't even worried about the possibility. And yet, there he was, clear as day.

"Yeah, can I get two of the cinnamon twists, and, um… two of the iced brownies?" Butters questioned while pointing at the goods through the glass. "Oh! And a caramel latte!"

Tweek trembled as his blue eyes scanned over them. He seemed to be overcome with terror at their presence and couldn't will himself to speak. Instead, he just jerked his head in a nod. He turned to fetch a collapsed pastry box off of a rack behind him, though he nearly knocked the whole stack to the floor with a twitch.

"Dude, isn't that that freakish kid from school?" Eric whispered under his breath to Kenny. "The one who sees dead people or some shit?"

"Tweek Tweak, his parents own the place," Kenny replied with a nod.

"Surprised they don't have him locked up in a basement or something," Eric uttered as the anxious blond worked on mixing Butter's latte.

"Don't be so mean!" Butters scolded just as quietly.

Kyle shivered. The air around him suddenly felt so much colder, and his pulse quickened when a familiar fear overcame him. There was someone else there. He couldn't help but notice the gothic group had them in their crosshairs, too. With black framed eyes, they traced the conformists' every move as they interacted with the twitching barista. It was as if one wrong word would result in a freakish voodoo curse.

Tweek finally turned towards them with a box of treats and a steaming latte. He placed them on the counter, and then got to work ringing it up on the register. The boy grimaced as he clicked on the wrong keys. However, the register somehow reached an acceptable total. Butters paid with part of his allowance, and happily accepted the colorful box and his beverage.

"Thank you!" Butters said sincerely. Which, for some reason, earned a small smile from their peculiar cashier. Eric snagged the box away from butters before they could even manage to step aside.

The blue eyes of the barista met with Kyle's before he uttered in that eerily cracking voice: "And what'll you have?"

Kyle admitted the Shadowman was much less threatening out of uniform, but that didn't change the fact the he knew he was being watched. The goths' glowers couldn't compete with the eyeless face lingering nearby. He couldn't see it, but he damn sure knew it was there.

"Um, can I just have two vanilla coffees- two scoops of creamer in both," he uttered like he wasn't shaking down to his marrow. It was so hard to read the intentions of those bright blue eyes. They almost seemed hallow.

Wordlessly, Tweek got to work on Kyle's coffee. Two steaming cups were placed on the counter, and again Tweek fussed with the cash register until it spit out a total. Kyle passed his cash over to the barista, their fingers brushing as Tweek clamped his hand on the bills.

Gasping desperately for breath.

Someone was drowning. Murky brown water filled a young pair of lungs. Kyle almost gasped himself as he felt violently splashing water wet his clothes.

He jerked his hand away, but Tweek didn't seem to pay any mind to that. He shoved the bills in the register, dropped Kyle's change on the counter, and then simply said, "Thanks, come again."

Kyle was visibly shaken when his friends whisked him away to the opposite side of the café. Kenny was staring at him, which didn't really help matters. Somehow, it was still hard to breath. Kyle slowly sucked in labored breaths to calm himself down, but the small vision he stole from Tweek's hand left his brain waterlogged.

"Wow, that was fucking weird," Cartman uttered as he slid into a booth. Butters took the seat beside him, and Kyle and Kenny settled in across the table. As usual.

"Yeah," Kenny agreed as he wrapped his cold hands around his paper coffee cup. "Tweek's always been like that, though- least 'for as long as I remember. Really awkward."

"Wait, you know him?" Kyle blurted.

"Tweek? Well… kinda. When I was a kid I spent a lot of time with Craig… uh, Tucker, you guys know. They kind of came as a package."

Actually… Kyle didn't know that. For some reason, it really bothered him when he realized there were things about Kenny he was simply never told about. Especially since Kyle already asked him about Craig, and all Kenny did was shrug.

"Yeah," Butters said as he pulled apart his donut. "Tweek really wasn't so weird until Craig was gone, though. He was actually really nice. I think he still is, y-you know, even though he's kind of... um... different."

The lot of them went quiet when they heard a sound from the counter. Tweek was taking off his apron with one hand, a coffee in the other, as he made his way towards the goths' table. Henrietta slid aside, and Tweek shakily took a seat beside her. This was intriguing for some reason.

"Hangs out with the goths. Man, I am not surprised," Eric uttered, and then reached in Butters's box for a brownie.

Kyle ignored the comment. He leaned forward into the table and asked quiet enough to where he was sure Tweek wouldn't hear, "Wait, what actually happened to Craig? They didn't ever find out, did they?"

"Kyle, you have lived here all your life how do you not know about Craig Tucker?" Cartman asked more loudly than Kyle was comfortable with. "They talked about him on t.v. for like a fucking year."

"Well... I don't know," Kyle couldn't come up with a good excuse. Honestly, he tried for the longest time to avoid it all together. It wasn't so hard when bad things happened to strangers, but Craig wasn't a stranger. He had art class with him. He saw him every day at school. The idea of a boy he'd known simply vanishing in the night never sat well with him. Especially after hearing Tweek's teary rants in class. Then again, Stan was the only one who ever knew that about Kyle.

He was the only one who knew everything.

"Can't you guys just... kindly fill me in?" Kyle muttered.

"...They said he probably ran away," Kenny decided to explain as he played with his fingers. "But, like… he didn't just climb out his window in the middle of the night or anything. He was on his way home from Tweek's house- a five minute walk. He just vanished."

Kyle already knew _that_ much. Surely over five years they at least had a lead, even if it was just something small like a shirt or a shoe.

"And?" he coaxed.

"And… well, that's it. That's the end of the story."

* * *

><p>Ey ey, thanks for reading, friend! I was actually really nervous about posting this story since it's so different, but you guys have been rad so far. If you have any ideas or things you'd like to see in the fic please let me know. I have most of it all planned out, but I love suggestions! Comments and reviews also help push me along. Every time I get a new one it's like "Oh, shit, I need to update," so feel free ;U;<p> 


	5. Terrible Things

**Warning!: This chapter contains a depiction of a panic attack that's the result of a past sexual assault against a child**. Please proceed with caution, survivors!

* * *

><p><em>In the distance, a wavering voice hums: Small Lifeforms by Daughter<em>

**Oculus  
><strong>Chapter 4; _Terrible Things_

"Hey, Kyle!" A voice said happily. A pair of red sneakers squeaked to a stop before him, and all Kyle could do was smile at the familiar face. It was the first day of eighth grade. He hadn't seen most of the faces that drifted by them since before summer started, but not this one.

He saw it nearly every day over the break.

"Hey, Stan," he greeted in return. "Ready for school?"

In a voice of pure excitement and elation, Stan blurted out a huge: "Fuck no!"

Kyle laughed, and the pair continued down the hallway side by side.

"You know, I have more classes with Cartman than with you this year," Kyle groaned. "Your first period is Math, right?"

"Yeah," Stan sighed in return. "How about you?"

"Astronomy."

"Isn't that a class for the high schoolers?"

Kyle shrugged. "I guess so, but they let me start early because of my GPA."

"Well look at you, Mr. Honor Role's moving on up."

"Oh, here's room 112. That's Algebra 1," Kyle interrupted as he pointed up at the white painted numbers over a black doorframe.

"I guess this is my stop then. Have fun learning about space or whatever it is you do in astronomy," Stan said while walking towards the door. "Oh! Wait a minute, I almost forgot."

Kyle tilted his head to the side in curiosity as he watched his best friend dig through his messenger bag. When Stan was through, he held his hand out.

"What is it?" Kyle asked with a dumb smile on his face. He reached his palm out under Stan's fist. When it opened, a small gift landed in Kyle's hand.

"A present. I have one, too," Stan said before pulling up his sleeve to showcase a red and blue bracelet made of weaved yarn. "They're friendship bracelets."

"Did you make them?" Kyle asked as he slipped his onto his wrist. It was weaved with green and white, Kyle's favorite colors.

"Yeah, my sister taught me last night," Stan said proudly.

"Gay," Kyle said with a laugh.

"Good, you should fucking love them then, you dick," Stan snickered with a lopsided smirk. "Hey, gotta go. I'll see you and the guys at lunch, yeah?"

"Yeah!"

Kyle never admitted it, but he was always nervous the first day back to school. His anxiety only grew when he watched the door to room 112 close behind his best friend's back. Sighing, he joined the stream of student's to look for his first class alone.

Anxiously, he reached down and rubbed the yarn around his wrist.

* * *

><p>Tweek sat in the back of class. There was no one beside his desk and no one in front of it. It was almost as if he was being quarantined or exiled for his abnormality. Banned from the teenage experience. Though, in all honesty, he didn't appear to mind. He just sat there at his desk taking turns between jotting down notes and scribbling in a sketch book. Kyle never really noticed until then. Sure, he always knew Tweek was there, but, like the rest of the school, he never really bothered to stop and pay attention. Now, it's all he could think about.<p>

Three English classes had passed since their odd meeting at the coffee shop. In those three days he and Butters pulled an all-nighter studying, Kenny and Eric swore not to talk to each other ever again for the fifth time, and another article appeared in the paper about the Shadowman and his holes. So, in other words, everything was just as it was before Kyle's terrifying reunion with Craig Tucker.

Everything except for his dreams.

His once pleasant sleeping had been invaded by vivid visions of murky water and collapsing lungs. Puss oozing eye sockets and shredded fingertips. He supposed that's what he got for leeching a vision off of such a spiritually toxic person as Tweek, but he didn't _mean_ to.

Kyle's tired green eyes slid towards the lonely desk at the back of class. Tweek was there, as always, with mud-caked boots and a graphite stain on the outside of his right hand. He bit his chapped lip as he scribbled in that warn out sketchbook. Kyle only wondered what dark and disturbing things he would find in the personal drawings of the shadowman.

He shook his head with a small sigh, and then averted his attention back to the front of the class. The teacher's soft spoken voice and airy movements didn't at all help her drowsy student keep his heavy eyes open. His head slowly drooped down over his notes. The words on his notebook paper all ran together and faded in and out as he yawned.

"Kyle?… Kyle?"

He stirred at the sound of his name, his eyes cracking back open to discover an empty classroom. He jolted up out off of his desk. His cheek was wet and cold from where he'd managed to drool all over his class work and himself. His teacher, Mrs. Langly, was looking down at him with a worried expression.

"O-oh," he stammered while wiping at his cheek with his sleeve. "Shoot, I'm so sorry. What time is it?"

Mrs. Langly's frown melted into a humored quirk of the lips.

"Class only just ended," she assured him calmly.

"Crap, I didn't finish my notes," he spat. The honor roll student was careful to censor himself even as he was having a miniature meltdown.

"Don't worry, don't worry," Mrs. Langly said while tucking a black hair behind her ear. "I can give you a copy of the overview when you come in tomorrow. Just be sure to get a lot of sleep tonight, okay?"

Relieved, Kyle quickly gathered up his belongings and shoved them in his binder. He supposed being teacher's pet did have its upsides.

"Thank you so much, Mrs. Langly. It won't happen again, I promise."

All she did was offer an understanding nod before returning to her desk. Kyle squeezed his binder against his chest as he stumbled towards the hall. Stumbled, because he stepped on something rather thick and nearly went tumbling. He looked down at the binded stack of papers which were still under the sole of his shoe. He bent down and lifted the thing up off the floor. It had a shiny white cover adorned with the words "sketch diary". Under the neat font was a name sloppily written an underlined in red sharpie.

_TWEEK TWEAK_

Kyle felt a bubbling in his chest when he realized just what was in his hands. Tweek's sketchbook. His blood pumped about a thousand times quicker as excitement tightened in his chest. Mrs. Langly was giving him an odd look as he gawked at the thing, but didn't bother to question him when he tucked it against his binder and spilled out into the hall with the rest of the hustling students. He stopped at his locker, number 153, before switching out his materials for his next class. All his materials, anyway, aside from a peculiar sketchbook. He kept it hidden in his binder like contraband.

When he reached his next class, AP Biology, he sat as far away from his group as their shared table would allow. He wasn't too worried about unwanted conversation. Wendy Testaburger was assigned the seat beside him. She spent most of her time absorbed in her school work. Lately, she'd been so absorbed it was almost frightening. Kyle understood why.

She wouldn't be bothered with trying to speak with him today.

He unzipped his trapper keeper as Wendy exchanged notes with Annie, the third member of their class-assigned group. When the flap of his binder fell open the cover of Tweek's sketch book greeted him. His eyes darted around the rows of students as if he was about to commit a crime.

His fingers pressed against the front cover, and then he carefully flipped it open to the first page.

Grotesque images of mutilated corpses and depictions of the gory dead? No, that was a little off the mark.

Instead, Kyle was met face to face with an oddly cartoony depiction of a tiny boy in a sweater. There were black blotches where eyes should have been, but otherwise it was just… well… _adorable_. A happy little line made a smile between the black eyes, and some pudgy wisps of black made up the hair poking out from under an earflap hat.

The cute little creature seemed elated by his pretty sweater. Realizing that almost made Kyle laugh.

He flipped to the next page. Then the next, and then the next. They were all just pictures of sweaters. Some of them were modeled by the same chunky cartoon boy on the front page, and others weren't. There was one thing they all had in common, though: chicken scratched abbreviations and numbers written to the side of every page. Thanks to how much time Kyle spent with his mother, he knew exactly what they were.

Knitting patterns.

All the while Kyle was quietly pondering the horrors Tweek was creating on the blank paper of that book, he was only designing yarn sweaters. Kyle continued flipping casually though the pages. He observed sweater after colorful sweater, along with joyous doodles of bouquets and cartoon cats.

As he flipped and flipped his humored smile slowly melted into an uneasy line. There wasn't a single thing in that book that was going to tell him anything. The nightmares that had been plaguing him, the twisted being that hunted him down in the woods, and Tweek himself still remained blurred and confusing mysteries.

He was so devastated he didn't even hear the teacher greeting the class. He just went back to the first page and started skimming all over again, as if maybe he missed something. He came to a nerve-wracking conclusion by the time he'd again reached the end of Tweek's happy doodles. There was only one way to end the vivid visions in his dreams.

He had to talk to Tweek.

**…**

Tweek's boots thumped against warn wood as he paced the room. It was musty and old, just like the rest of the house he'd dubbed his home away from home.

Not that he wanted to.

There was a large piece of paper tacked over the crumpled, floral wallpaper. A map of Stark's Pond. It had hung there for as long as he inhabited that place. Over time it's once crisp, white image had been scribbled over and written on in various types on markers and pens. Big circles and x's, mostly. They marked the holes he'd dug, and the holes he went back and dug deeper. He stared wide eyed as he gnawed at his thumbnail.

What was he missing? He skimmed over the waterfront and the woods, its borders and landmarks scribbled in like Tweek's x's and o's. Where? Where? WHERE?

It was only about four o' clock. He had all day to figure out his next excavation site, but all day was not long enough. Weeks and months were not long enough.

Five years was not long enough. Five fucking years digging and he still hadn't found it. There were so many times he nearly tossed his shovel in a dumpster. One of those times he ended up wreaking like trash.

His boots changed direction, and he rubbed his sleeve against the dirty glass of a window. He peered down from the second story at the yard below. Craig was there, crawling slowly through the grass. Tweek's lip quirked up when he noticed a small blond head peek around the trunk of a tree. Craig noticed, too, and quickly scurried along the ground to attempt to jump on the apparition before it could stumble away.

Despite how much it took out of Tweek to be at the pond, it was always a breath of fresh air to see Craig get to play with other children. Though he was never quite sure exactly what it was they played.

Craig, on the other hand, knew every rule of the game. He may have been completely blind, but he had other means of finding the other kids during their many hide and seek adventures. Usually, he was the one to seek. The game never ended when he was the one to hide.

Craig's fingers scraped along the bark of a tree before he pounced. He was sure he'd land on the other boy- he could hear soft breathing nearby. However, his hands and knees landed painfully against the exposed roots of the tree. Confused, Craig turned his head as if he could see if he just tried hard enough. He could hear someone nearby, feel the faint vibrations of feet through the dirt and roots. They felt like the vibrations he used to feel through the headboard. He knew what was coming, and that there was no escape.

He lifted his head up, but it was jerked back down when the boy he'd originally been tracking jumped playfully on his back. A pair of arms wrapped loosely around his neck, and Craig immediately screamed. Not the howl of joyful play he usually let out, but a yelp that truly sounded terrified.

The boy was knocked off Craig's back as the gory creature thrashed across the ground. He realized what he was doing, but was powerless to stop it. Once it began, it wouldn't stop until it was done with him.

Tweek was still inside, unaware of the ongoing battle Craig was fighting. He marked on his paper and sighed to himself. It was then heard a raddle at the window. He lifted his head up from his work and waited a moment until the glass in the window panes began to vibrate violently. He heard the collective murmur of distressed voices and ran to the window. The children were standing in a circle in the back yard. He watched through the grimy glass with squinted eyes as they joined hands. A tiny body was in the middle, thrashing across the grass.

Tweek called it a healing circle, because that's exactly what it was. The children would make such a circle under one circumstance: Craig was on the edge of a mental breakdown.

"Shit," Tweek hissed before turning and running throughout the house. He could never resist the urge to run to Craig's rescue, even when he knew there was nothing he could do. He ran out into the yard, nearly tripping over his own feet as they pumped underneath him.

The children were singing, but their happy sounds were not soothing Craig as they always had before. Tweek stopped only feet away from their playful circle. They all slowly span around and around, giggling and cooing. Singing and playing. Tweek watched with hitched breath as Craig struggled to stand. He was trying so hard to focus on the children's voices, but the groan of springs echoed much louder.

They couldn't save him this time.

He felt big hands all over him. Warm, intrusive hands that scraped at his skin raw with every touch. He felt heavy breath seeping stench into his neck. His jaw hung open as if he could beg for mercy, but his mouth was full of jagged teeth. The children's ritual that always saved Craig from reliving his torment was failing. He couldn't hear their voices anymore. All he felt was the breath in his ear. All he heard was a low, raspy whisper.

The children all scattered in opposite directions when Craig's panic gave way to violence. Tweek watched on in horror as little Craig lurched and tried to escape. Blind, he slammed headfirst into the trunk of a tree. His skull smashed against the resilient wood, but that disgusting puffing was still heaving into his flesh.

"It's not real, Craig!" Tweek tried to convince the boy as he fought to escape an attacker that simply wasn't there.

Craig was crying. Loud. Tweek could hardly stand the sound.

"It's okay!" Tweek said as he quickly rushed to the other's aid. Rather than reply, Craig jerked back and bashed his head against the bark.

"S-stop!" Tweek demanded as he tried to scoop the boy up in his arms. He was met with an ear busting screech. It sounded pained, as if each of his touches were searing Craig's skin. Alarmed, Tweek let Craig fall back onto the ground where he twisted and kicked at an unseen force.

_"MAKE IT STOP,"_ Craig wretched in a voice that didn't belong to him, **"I CANT BREATHE."**

_**"KILL ME."**_

Tweek couldn't fucking take it anymore. Craig never had an attack that bad, and Tweek realized he was absolutely powerless. All he could do was stand and watch as Craig was forced to endure his defilement over again. Tweek fell to his knees as Craig again rammed his skull against the tree. He had to do _something_. He at least had to try.

"Twinkle, Twinkle, little star," Tweek sang through his wavering, cracking voice. "How I wonder what you are."

The words did nothing to spare Craig from his torment. All they did was meld miserably with the little ghost's booming pleads for mercy.

"Up above the world so h-high… Like a diamond in the sky."

It didn't help, but Tweek couldn't stop. He just kept mimicking the children's song.

"When the blazing sun is gone, when the nothing shines upon."

Craig's bone snapping contortions slowed. His neck snapped nearly completely around with a crack. Two red, gushing holes stared back blankly at Tweek. A lump formed in the middle of Tweek's throat at the grotesque sight, but his trembling lips continued on.

"Then you show your little l-light. Twinkle, twinkle, all the night."

Craig's sobbing returned to him as his twisted mess of limbs straightened themselves out. He scrambled across the ground on his bloody hands and knees, right into Tweek's open arms. The choked and miserable cries didn't stop, but Craig's shredded fingers were back to stroking Tweek's face. The usually black, tar lined insides of Craig's eye sockets were red and meaty. Fleshy strands hung from the holes as if they'd only just been carved out of his head. Streaks of fresh blood made lines down his white skin, but it wouldn't stop gushing from the inside of his legs.

"I'm just gonna wipe you off, is that okay?" Tweek asked as he struggled not to cry. He pulled off his jacket, being careful not to startle the small boy still whimpering near his face. He bundled up the cloth and gently brought it to Craig's cheeks. The sobbing stopped when the little boy felt the familiar smelling cloth, though Tweek was too shaken to smile this time.

Once the gore had been wiped away from Craig's face, Tweek brought the crimson stained cloth to the boys blood streaked and trembling thighs. The moment the jacket pressed against his fragile skin the boy broke back out into heartbreaking sobs. His small hands grabbed Tweek's wrist, and he shook his head hard- begging for it to stop.

"No, no. I- I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Tweek cried out as he tossed the jacket aside. His cheeks were streaked wet with tears, though he was too absorbed in the sound of Craig's screaming to notice. He carefully pulled the broken boy into his lap, where he loosely held him against his chest and rocked back and forth.

"We're okay now," Tweek promised while nodding his head. "We're okay. Nobody can hurt you anymore."

Craig's tiny fingers clutched onto the front of Tweek's shirt. Fresh blood again overflowed from where he was most afraid of being touched. It left grisly streams of red slathered across his legs and dirty white shirt. It spilled all over Tweek, too, as he held the boy against his chest. He didn't care. He just stayed there, rocking back and forth while rubbing Craig's back.

"We're okay. We're fine. Nobody can hurt you now."

**…**

Class had been over for a couple hours by the time Kyle got around to going to Tweek's house. Or, at least, what he hoped was still Tweek's house. He only remembered Kenny casually mentioning it once as they drove by in middle school, so he hoped he wasn't going to end up knocking on a stranger's door.

His sneakers thumped against wood as he stepped up onto a porch. Wind chimes sang pleasant songs as they were caught in a light breeze. They twinkled over his head. The house seemed nice enough. The yard was well trimmed and there was a colorful patio set arranged on the porch. Trim and neat, like most all of the houses on that block.

He tugged the straps of his backpack. The sketchbook was inside along with a few other of his personal belongings. He sucked in a steadying breath, and then walked up to the wooden door. There was a stained glass window nestled into the oak, though he couldn't see through it. He tapped his knuckles against the door, then waited with a lump in his throat.

The door came open so soon Kyle jumped. There was a woman on the other side. Her hair was cut into a short bob, and her blue eyes gazed down pleasantly at Kyle. He recognized her immediately: Mrs. Tweak, the woman who owns the coffee shop with her husband.

"Oh!" She said with a small smile. "Kyle, right? The little Broflovski boy. Always gets two coffees with two scoops of vanilla creamer each. Yes, I remember."

Kyle could only nod his head politely as he squeezed on the straps of his backpack. This was indeed Tweek's house.

"So, what can I do for you young man?"

"Oh, yeah," he uttered rather awkwardly while fidgeting with the edge of his jacket. "Is Tweek home?"

He dark haired woman behind the door looked down at him with a lost expression.

"Tweek?" She questioned as if maybe she didn't hear him right.

"Um… yeah! I need to talk to him about one of our classes." Kyle didn't like lying, but if he told her about the sketchbook she'd probably just suggest he leave it with her. He couldn't lose his only ticket to talking to Tweek. It would be easier if he had an excuse to start conversation.

"Oh! He's not home right now. I think he went on a walk," Mrs. Tweak replied with a nod. "He likes to wander off and have time for himself, you know? I can take a message for him if you'd like."

"Ah, that's fine. Just tell him I stopped by, I guess," he replied. "Thank you!"

"Well, of course! Anytime!" she said before the decorated door creaked closed.

Well, there went that idea. Tweek wasn't home, but Kyle wasn't the kind to give up so easily. He stepped off the Tweak's porch making a mental list of all the places Tweek might be. Not that he really had any idea. When he stopped to think about it, he hadn't ever noticed seeing Tweek out and about around town. Not that he could remember, anyway.

First, he checked the park. Then the grocery store. Then the gas station. Then the coffee shop. Having no luck, he took an uneasy stroll down one of South Park's few streets. He was debating with himself whether or not he should follow it to the end. There was one place left on his mental checklist. He put it at the bottom for a reason, and that reason was because he did not want to go back.

Of course while walking the streets he made sure not to peek up at certain houses. It was easy to get discouraged and want to go home when he'd see figures watching him from windows. It was just a part of his gift. He saw them when they wanted to be seen, whether he liked it or not. The only way to avoid it was well… to not look.

The church came into view as he nervously made his way towards the pond. It stood beautifully amongst tall green pine trees, though the sidewalk had been cracking and crumbling over time. The cement was so broken up and uneven he had to step up and down ajar hunks of sidewalk. The sky was changing colors as the sun made its sleepy decent into the mountains, and Kyle was quickly reconsidering. He bit down on his lip when he saw the glistening blue water in the distance. Air got harder to suck in the closer he got. The power that place held was overwhelming. He couldn't help but feel like bugs were skittering around beneath his flesh. He ran his fingernails over his arm for a moment, and then squeezed his yarn bracelet.

"Okay," he said to himself as he came to the gravel parking lot. "We aren't going in the woods. So don't be scared. We're just… peeking at the pond, then we're gonna run back home. Yeah…"

He passed a trash can as he stepped onto the path that lead down to the water's edge. His eyes scanned the grassy landscape for any sign of life. Much to his shock, there were people there. In the distance there was a wooden bench planted along the dirt path. A tall figure was slouched forward on said bench. As Kyle walked closer he could make out a small pair of bare legs, like someone was sitting in its lap.

He wasn't sure if it was Tweek, but he figured he'd be able to tell once he was close enough. A chilly breeze wafted over him from the pond. He shivered as the water ripple and dance. When he glanced back at the bench, he only saw a blond person with a black jacket draped over his lap. No bare legs. No little person.

He'd found who he was looking for.

"Hello," Kyle offered quietly, which made the blond jump. He whirled around to find the redhead there clutching a sketchbook to his chest.

"Sorry! I didn't want to scare you! I just… this is yours."

He held the book out for Tweek to take, but the blond boy just stared dumbly at it. It was almost as if he was sure it was some kind of trap. Oh, and he was.

"You dropped it in English class, I've been trying to return it all day," Kyle said with a small, but friendly smile.

Not impressed by Kyle's sweetness, Tweek reached up and snatched the book away. He set it in his lap, and the two remained quiet as he skimmed through the sweater-covered pages. Kyle didn't like the implications of it, but didn't say a word until Tweek made it to the blank pages.

"…See, just like you left it," Kyle chimed as if to reaffirm his innocence.

Tweek nodded slightly, and then gazed back up at the other boy. "What else do you want?"

"Huh?" Kyle muttered.

"You're still standing here, so there must be something else," Tweek snapped almost bitterly.

Kyle's cheeks tinted an annoyed red at the harshness of Tweek's tone. He was hoping for a thank you at least, but it was obvious Tweek wasn't the kind of person who threw out such niceties. He'd spent his entire day looking for that asshole- for answers! Still, leaving a bad taste in the mouth of the person keeping them probably wasn't the best way to get them.

"I, um… no," Kyle lied. "No, that's all."

He turned and stiffly took off in the opposite direction. He didn't know what he expected, really. Such a social recluse surely wasn't going to crack open and spill out all his secrets just because Kyle returned a book. It was then, as he was festering in his doubts, he heard the sound of footsteps thumping in the dirt. Kyle stopped and turned around, where he found Tweek tailing behind him at a distance.

"What are you doing?" Kyle asked while shaking his head. His exasperation was a little too obvious.

"…I don't let let people walk home alone anymore," Tweek uttered through clenched teeth. "Not when it's getting dark."

Kyle was awestruck for a moment, but ultimately ended up nodding slowly in consent. The odd pair walked through the appending night, though Tweek remained lingering quietly in the background. Kyle had to admit how creepy it was being followed by the tall, hooded figure. Neither spoke a single word until they'd already awkwardly shuffled past the lights of the church.

"I hope you don't get mad, but I peeked in your sketchbook," Kyle finally confessed to break the silence between him and his new shadow. "I liked all your sweaters, do you actually make them?"

Tweek jerked his head in an awkward nod. He wasn't really used to strangers trying to start up idle chit chat. Not that Kyle was exactly a _stranger_, but he might as well been. Tweek rubbed his aching ribs and let out a shaky sigh. They were hurting and tight, like his lungs puffed up like balloons.

"I knit sometimes- it's stupid," Tweek finally admitted. Stupid as in it was something the other kids didn't do. Then again, the other kids didn't have a shivering little Craig to keep warm, either.

"I don't think it's stupid," Kyle commented. "I used to knit sometimes. My mom really loves doing it."

Again, Tweek only stiffly nodded. Kyle contemplated a moment how to bring up all the questions he had. He wasn't exactly sure how to ask them.

"So, why were you hanging around the pond so late at night?" Kyle questioned while staring at the muck on Tweek's boots. The hooded blond was finally walking alongside him.

Again, Tweek preferred to reply without words. A stiff shrug was about all he could muster. He was worn out, tired, and his heart was all withered up and sad.

"Well, you must be pretty brave to hang out around there by yourself!" Kyle concluded as the sound of their footsteps shuffled beneath them. "Especially with the shadowman."

Suddenly, the streetlamps flickered to life above them, making Kyle jump a little. They let out a creepy buzzing than hummed through the darkening air.

Tweek would not reply to Kyle. The subject understandably put his already sore heart in overdrive. As they stepped out from under the safety of a streetlamp Tweek took in Kyle's form in the darkness. His hands went clammy. Kyle was there the night fatass and his friends chased him through the woods. Oh, fucking Jesus. What if it was all a trap? What if this was another fucking attempt at snatching him?

"You don't talk much, do you?" Kyle asked quietly.

"Everyone's stupid," Tweek suddenly said. "Shadowman this. Shadowman that. It's all so dumb."

"Well… I guess it'd be a little ridiculous if what they say is true," Kyle said while tapping his chin with his pointer finger. "Murderous ghosts trying to hide bodies."

"It's_ not _true," Tweek said through a tight jaw. There was no point being subtle. He already made up his mind that Kyle was about to ambush him. He was so sure Cartman and the others were hiding around every corner that he flinched each time they passed the side of a house, expecting to get pounced on.

Kyle shifted his gaze up to the tall teen beside him. After a moment of consideration, he timidly asked: "Then... what is the truth?"

They both went silent as they walked under streetlights. Tweek was so ready to start running. He wanted to so badly, but the last time he let someone slip away into the dark of night alone…

"I don't know," Tweek muttered the lie. They were all going to jump him and probably beat the shit out of him. Then turn him into the cops and come to his cell just so they could throw stuff at him from between the bars. Like some monkey in a zoo. Oh, Jesus. The least he could do was plead his case. "Maybe… maybe he's a good guy, you know? M-maybe he's trying to do the opposite of what everyone always says."

"Like what, instead of trying to hide body parts he's trying to_ find_ them?..." The sentence almost began as a joke, at least until he reached the punch line. Kyle stopped in his tracks beneath another streetlight, which made Tweek do the same.

"That's… that's why you're out there digging holes, isn't it?" he asked with knit brows.

Tweek looked back with wide eyes. His mouth fell open a little as if he wanted to argue, but none of the petrified words he could think of would push past the barrier of his lips.

"No one would listen to you about Craig, so you've been going out there all this time to find him on your own."

Tweek took a step back. His round, blue eyes wavered and flicked as if he was searching for an escape. He was awestruck. The gears in his head all fell loose and were rattling around in his brain. Who was this Kyle character? How the fuck could he figure Tweek out so easily?

"What? Me?" Tweek blurted while stepping out of the buzzing light of the lamppost they wandered under.

"I haven't told anyone," Kyle promised before slowly nodding his head. "I'm the only one who saw your face."

Boom_,_ Tweek was fucking right. The one time he was hoping to be wrong.

"Oh, god. Jesus. W-what do you want? I don't have a whole lot for you to take- what do you w-want with me?!"

"Wow! No, no, I'm not trying to blackmail you!" Kyle said with his arms shooting up in surrender. "I just… I don't know, I just wanted to talk."

"Why?! Are you bugged? Recording all this for one of those news articles or something?!" Tweek nearly screamed in a frightened voice. "You can't- you can't turn me in, you can't! I haven't found him yet!"

"I'm not bugged, and I'm not going to turn you in. I wouldn't spend all day searching for you just so I could escort you to a police station," Kyle retorted as he continued on his way home. He treaded off the sidewalk and crossed the street. Perplexed, Tweek wafted after him.

"Then why?" Tweek persisted.

Kyle looked down at his feet. He literally had Tweek right where he wanted him. All he had to do was spill the beans about his gift. _'Cause I see dead people, and I wanna know why your precious Craig tried to rip my face off,_ was a good way to start. Or, he could go more subtle with a simple: _I get psychic visions when I touch things, and I can't even sleep since you grabbed my hand._

Really, there were a thousand ways he could say it, but now that he was there side by side with the legendary shadowman he couldn't even open his mouth. He rubbed his temples and exhaled.

"I guess I was just curious about you."

The suspicious look Tweek gave him was more than enough to prove he didn't believe Kyle. Not for a moment.

Kyle rubbed his yarn bracelet with his thumb as he saw his house tucked alongside the others on his sleepy street.

"And I… I never knew anyone who could see them like I can."

"You see dead people, too, yeah sure," Tweek laughed in disbelief. Kyle was almost shocked at first to hear such utter doubt, at least until he remembered every _'psychic'_ he'd ever seen on a T.V. show.

People loved to pretend.

"Craig's eyes are ripped out of his head," Kyle said as he nodded away the chilling memory.

Tweek gawked at the other with eyes as big as the moon rising overhead, but that's where that conversation seized. They'd finally reached Kyle's house.

Tweek stood on the sidewalk as Kyle stepped up onto his front stoop. He took in a heavy breath before turning back to look at the person behind him. Those icy blue eyes were still locked onto Kyle. The skin around it was pale, giving away just how chilled to the bone Tweek had become.

Aside from himself, there was no one.

No one in his life who had _ever_ seen Craig. He was both astonished and terrified.

Kyle nibbled on his bottom lip a moment.

"Maybe… we can meet up again sometime and talk?" he suggested. "You don't have to be so alone all the time, you know."

Immediately, Tweek shook his head no.

"I don't talk," he nearly hissed. "I don't need friends."

Kyle looked down at his shoes. That was it for tonight. The door closed behind him, and Tweek was left staring at the pristine, polished wood.

* * *

><p>Thanks to snowydella of tumblr (my sweet precious child) for beta reading for me! Also for all her awesome fanart ;U; And a huge thanks to you for reading!<p> 


	6. Dig Deep

He cries to: Still Here by Digital Daggers

**Oculus**

_Chapter 5; Dig Deep_

There were so many moments in life Tweek wished he could relive.

If he could just find a tear in time he would step right through it and right all the wrongs he'd made. He could conquer the demons infesting his torn mind and set everything right again. He'd always felt that way; since the moment Craig vanished from the sidewalk. After all, all it would have taken to spare Craig from his unending misery would have been a few simple words. A show of concern; a casual suggestion. If only he had walked Craig home. If only he'd insisted on a sleep over. That was all he had to do.

He didn't know Craig was one sentence away from salvation. So, instead of walking Craig home, instead of insisting on a sleepover, all he did was say goodbye. A single breath was all Tweek needed to sacrifice to save Craig's life, but he found out a day too late.

Now, the only thing distancing him from Craig's salvation was time. Sadly, Tweek did not have a time machine. All he had were his words. Words, it seemed, nobody wanted to hear. Nobody including his best childhood friends, Token and Clyde.

They had been together for as long as Tweek could really recall. It had always been the four of them, including Craig. They were an impenetrable force. An unshakable alliance of trust and true loyalty. Through hell and high water their four man show ruled the world; no questions asked. So, naturally, Tweek confided in his best friends. He told them everything. His vivid visions in his dreams, the arrival of their mangled friend, and how urgent it was for someone to find him. They always listened to him. It was pretty obvious they didn't believe a word Tweek spoke, but they still listened. They listened because they loved him. Despite all the bullies and school councilor visits he'd accumulated in those few months, they still loved him.

At least that's what he thought until one miserable day in seventh grade.

That morning he was scuttling towards Clyde's locker with his head down. He and Craig met up with his friends there every day before class started. That didn't change after Craig's death. Tweek held his books tightly against his chest as he approached his friends. He could see Clyde's jersey jacket through the crowd; Token's purple hoodie, too.

However, there was something different about that morning. There was a guy at Clyde's locker. It was a new kid Tweek barely recognized. The kid's name and face eventually was lost to time, seeing as how he only went to their school for a year of junior high.

Anxious, Tweek stood behind Token and waited for the unwelcome intruder to leave.

"It's this Sunday. I'm pretty much inviting everybody, so feel free to spread it around," The kid said as he nodded his head.

"We could totally come, yeah!" Clyde blurted excitedly to the foreign face.

"Alright, cool!" the other rejoiced. "Oh, but… don't you hang around with that… psychotic kid? The one who thinks he sees dead people or something? Let's… kinda forget to tell him about it, alright?"

The look on Tweek's face must have been heartbreaking.

"What? You mean Tweek?" Token asked with his brows furrowed. It almost seemed like he was going to go to Tweek's defense, but another voice chimed in before he could speak.

"You're kidding me, right? I wouldn't worry. That freak just kinda hangs around us for some reason. We just haven't had the heart to tell him to leave us alone, yet."

Tweek could practically feel his heart crush between the teeth of those hurtful words; Clyde's hurtful words.

"Alright, cool!" said the unnamed boy that, to Tweek, was never worth remembering. "See you then!"

As the kid walked away, Token gave Clyde a scornful look.

"Oh, come on!" Clyde whined before turning around to close his locker. "It's not like Tweek's gonna-"

He stopped, because in that moment he noticed a familiar face staring back at him from around Token's arm. The look Tweek was wearing said it all. Clyde's cheeks drained of color. He'd been caught, and he knew there was no smoothing it over. Token watched in silent shock as his friends stared blankly at one another.

Tweek finally broke the perturbed silence with, "Y… you think I'm a freak?"

"Well…" Clyde looked into his locker as he thought about what he should say. "I mean, maybe freak was a little harsh, but…"

"But what?" Tweek demanded. His round eyes brimmed faintly with bitter water.

Clyde sighed, and then ran a hand through his brown hair. He always did that right before he was about to come out with something.

"I'm just tired," he admitted while shaking his head. "I'm tired of all the stuff you say and all the things you do. It's like everything's gotta be so complicated. It was bearable before, but nobody even wants to sit with us anymore because all you ever do is make up stuff about Craig."

Tweek shook his head. Hard.

"Wh- but I'm not making it up!"

Finally, all the frustration Clyde had been harboring all that time came exploding out of him. He truly was so tired, and he just couldn't listen to all the bullshit anymore.

"Stop lying, Tweek! You don't know what happened to Craig – _Nobody_ does!"

"Y-yes I do!" Tweek insisted, putting a heavy weight on each word he spat out of his mouth. "He told me! He showed it to me when I was asleep!"

"Do you even listen to yourself? You don't see ghosts, Tweek. They aren't real! Craig was an actual person -your friend - who fucking disappeared. Do you have any idea how - how – _disrespectful_ it is to use him as some character for your little ghost stories?!"

Tweek was so taken aback by what his friend was saying he didn't know how to respond. His hands were shaking violently and it felt like his heart was a kettle drum Clyde was beating on. He looked to Token, who was always the peace maker when things went awry. All Token did was look down at his feet with a damning expression.

He agreed with Clyde.

"What? n-no! It's not… It's not like that!"

By that point hallway traffic stopped almost completely. Clyde and Tweek were so absorbed in their anger and confusion that they didn't notice the silence hidden under their screaming.

"Sure it's not! Just like that man in the attic, right? You think saying all these crazy things will make you seem cool? Well it fucking doesn't! It makes you look like a freak!"

There it was again; that word that left Tweek's eyes stinging and his mouth dry. _FREAK_.

"You think I would use losing Craig as some kind of leverage for a _lie_? He was my best friend. I can't run away from him like you can! I can't ever forget him like _you_ can!" Tweek spat, his face dangerously close to Clyde's.

Suddenly, there was a low rumble of chanting that seeped between the warring friends. It came from their crowd of peers. '_Fight_!' They chimed mindlessly, '_Fight_!'

"Shut up! Just shut up! The only thing you ever cared about was being the center of attention! You even had to go and make what happened to Craig all about you! You're a leech- a _LEECH_!

"That's not true!" Tweek protested through budding tears. He fisted the front of Clyde's jersey jacket in his trembling hands, begging to be believed or understood. "All I want is somebody to make him stop hurting! Please, Clyde! Please believe me!"

That was the last straw for Clyde. The chants from the crowd became more and more bloodthirsty. They wanted a show, and Tweek's fists were clutching the front of his jacket. He grabbed Tweek's wrists and shoved him away. Harder than he'd meant to. Tweek stumbled back and painfully rammed his shoulder into a locker. The sound reverberated through the metal just like Craig's low hissing reverberated through Tweek's skull.

The students surrounding them let out startled screams as lights above Clyde flickered and cracked before bursting with an ear shattering pop. For a short moment everyone was silent with shock, but it wasn't over. Clyde took a step back in surprise, and every locker in the hallway that hung open was violently slammed closed by an unseen force. Loose papers flew and the lights went haywire. Tweek was just as afraid as everyone else who witnessed the violent outburst. His fear only grew as thick black goo dripped from the ceiling and onto his shirt. He looked up to a disgusting sight. Craig was latched onto the ceiling above him.

Tweek realized no one else saw him. Everyone was looking at _Tweek_ with horrified expressions rather than the ghost hanging above their heads.

That was the day that turned Tweek's life into a solitary hell.

That was the day their fear began.

He wobbled to his feet. As he stood, everyone near him scrambled away. They were gawking at him as if he was a monster. As if he was a four eyed, bearded lady who escaped from the freak show. Tweek was the one who blew the light. He's the one who slammed all the locker doors, and he did it without so much as lifting a finger.

"How the hell did you do that?" Clyde finally spat. He was horrified, just like all the other speechless students eyeballing Tweek. He was so scared that the tears brimming in the edges of his eyes spilled over.

"It wasn't me!" Tweek screamed as he stumbled back. He didn't try to explain himself. He was tired of explaining. He was tired of just saying words and not being heard. They would never listen to him. They would never accept him.

Not even Token and Clyde.

He ran down the hall. The crowd of fearful kids split open right down the middle as he ran through them. No one wanted to be the one he bumped into. For all they knew, he could splatter them across their lockers with as much as a nod of his head.

He was still racing down the locker lined hallways when the attendance bell rang. He hardly noticed the sound. He was too petrified by the walls closing in on him. He felt like he was being asphyxiated.

Clyde. Clyde of all people. '_Betrayed_' didn't even begin to describe his anguish. He didn't have a single soul left to share his pain with. What was he going to do now? How was he going to sit in his classes without prying stares?... How could he survive all alone?

These questions were too much for the thirteen year old to take. He ran through the then-empty halls until he came across a big red sign. It was fixed over the frame of a metal door, glowing bright with deliverance. _EXIT_, it read in blocky letters. Without a second thought he pushed through it. He was met with fresh air. He breathed it in like an alcoholic sips on a bottle, but his insides still felt rotten. He staggered across the cement of a sidewalk before tripping over his own foot. A loud thump reverberated through that fresh air as he landed, but it didn't hurt. Or it hurt like a bitch and he was too busy flooding the sidewalk with his tears to care.

His chest heaved as he sat up. Choked sobs fell from his mouth when he saw a figure standing before him. Wearing nothing but an oversized shirt slathered with grime, Craig stared down at Tweek. His skin was nearly paper white, save for the red splotches at his joints.

"This is all your fault!" Tweek screamed. "T-they all think I did that! They're- They're all scared of us now, Craig! No one is ever gonna listen to us. Never!"

Craig didn't respond. He just stood there in a fixed place in time. Staring into nothingness with his eyeless sockets. Tweek ground his teeth together.

"Not even Token and Clyde will help us now," he whimpered. "Why did you have to go and get killed in the first place, you- you stupid ghost?! Say something!"

Craig's brows wrinkled together. His mouth opened and closed with a pattern of speech Tweek couldn't hear. Tweek's fingers pressed into cement as he watched Craig struggle. Finally a tiny noise slipped from between the cracks of Craig's white lips. It didn't really sound like much of anything. A small, jumbled murmur was all he could do, but he was trying.

He was trying so hard.

And again, Tweek's heart shattered.

"I'm sorry…" he muttered quietly to the phantom still opening and closing its lips. He wiped his wet cheeks with the back of his hands. "You were… just trying to protect me."

Craig's mouth closed.

Token and Clyde may have left him broken and empty just like everyone else, but at least he still had Craig. Or, at the very least, the shell he left behind.

"Just… don't ever, ever do that again," Tweek ordered as gently as he could manage.

Craig didn't reply. Not even with a nod. Still, Tweek somehow knew he understood.

* * *

><p>When Tweek couldn't see Craig, his chest ached.<p>

Tweek walked alone through the streets on his way home from dropping off Kyle. He couldn't hear Craig's footsteps behind him. He couldn't see his little figure walking alongside him. He still felt his presence. He was there, somewhere, though Tweek couldn't see him.

He sucked in a sharp breath, which only caused more tension in his already aching chest. It wasn't pain he felt, not really. It was more like a heavy pressure. It was almost as if he grew an extra lung he didn't quite have room for.

The pressure always came when Craig was away.

When he stepped into the front door of his house he came across a sight he didn't think much of. His parents sat on the living room couch, sleeping. He normally didn't come home until the early hours of the morning. By then, his parents finally gave up waiting for him to come home.

Who could blame them for waiting up, really? They, like every family on the block, had a deep seeded fear that their child could be the next to vanish. However, Tweek gave his parents extra reason to be scared for him. He snuck out, and a lot. Not only did he like to disappear in the midst of the night without so much as a goodbye, but he'd never tell the truth about where he'd been.

They'd had many stern talks with him, but no amount of talking could keep the shadowman away from Stark's Pond.

Tweek bunched his jacket up against his chest and made his way towards the stairs. He was careful to be quiet. Though this was a rare night he was at home when they wanted him to be, he'd rather escape another concerned lecture.

"You're home," he heard a groggy voice greet from behind him. He turned with a jolt to find his father looking up at him from the couch. His mother, however, still sat fast asleep beside him.

"Oh… yeah," Tweek uttered a little awkwardly while rigging his jacket in his hands.

"I mean, you're actually at home by nine," Richard clarified with an air of awe to his voice.

"Ah, you know," Tweek mumbled to himself. "Decided to roam the streets and sell all my drugs early today."

Richard rolled his eyes. "Ha ha, very funny."

Tweek seemed to think so, considering his laughter. He waved a lazy hand goodbye. Before he could put his foot on the first step his father stopped him with more unwanted conversation.

"Hey, Tweek," Richard uttered while leaning forward. "Do you think it'd be alright if I had a word with you real quick?"

Tweek quirked his head. He already knew where this was going. He'd had about a thousand '_interventions_' since Craig came back to him a mangled mess. Sometimes they'd try to get him to talk about it. Other times they'd want to know where it was he spent all his time at night. Then, on more recent occasions, they'd ask if he was on drugs.

Which, to be fair, there were nights he skipped the pond and went to Henrietta's. The goths were gracious with their weed, and Tweek was guilty of indulging when he was too stressed. That night was different from all the rest, though. Instead of bombarding Tweek with a web of confusing questions and concerned allegations, his father calmly stood from his seat and motioned for Tweek to follow him. With a defeated sigh, Tweek did so.

Richard led him into the kitchen and away from his sleeping mother, where they could talk without waking her. Richard took a seat at the table, and then nodded his head towards the chair across from him.

"Go on, son. This isn't about your late nights out. Sit."

The chair's legs groaned against the floor as Tweek pulled it out and sat down. He anxiously rubbed his muddy boots together. If it wasn't about his sneaking out, it could only be about two other things. He didn't feel like talking about either.

"Now, I know me and your mother talked to you plenty before about what you go through," Richard began as he tapped his fingers along the top of the table. Tweek immediately frowned. "But… I felt like you and I should talk. Man to man."

The kitchen clock ticked a somber tune as Tweek kept his eyes down on the tabletop. It had bright splotches of yellow running across the wood. They were reflections of the ceiling lamp that shined above them.

He didn't want to look up, because he already knew what kind of face his father would be wearing.

"I know you're living your own life, and as long as you aren't getting into trouble I don't mind letting you live it… but maybe- maybe you should focus on the _people_ in your life. The living people."

Tweek looked up and swallowed hard. Craig had always been a bit of a taboo subject, considering the very mention of him brought up the question of their only son's sanity. He was so sure they talked about locking him up in a loony bin at least once, if not twice daily.

"You don't have friends, you don't talk to me and your mother. It's like thisthing you've got going on is just… well, destroying your life. It has been for a very long time."

"Dad… I know how much you guys love me," Tweek began slowly. "Trust me. I know, but we've talked so much over the years I don't know what to say anymore."

"Please, just talk to me," Richard begged from across the table. "I won't judge you. I won't pick at you. Tweek, I'm your father and I just… I need to help my son. Please."

The tightness in Tweek's ribs only grew. He couldn't see Craig, but he could hear angry breath in the shell of his ear.

_Craig, chill out. We talked about this._

"You won't believe me. I don't expect anyone to. I just need you to understand that it isn't going away. Maybe not ever… Yeah, it hurts and all that fun stuff, but it's a punishment I need to take."

"Punishment?" Richard asked softly. His eyes changed again. They seemed softer, half lidded as he gazed at his only child. "Tweek… you don't need punishment. What happened to Craig is not your fault."

Tweek felt a weird shiver run through his lungs, like he'd just swallowed a mouthful of cold water. His bottom lip quivered without his consent, but otherwise he remained emotionless.

Richard leaned forward over the table. That worried look returned to him.

"You were just a little boy," he said as if he was begging Tweek to believe him. "There wasn't anything you could have done."

Tweek swallowed down the tension in his throat. He didn't agree. He didn't believe it. A few simple words were all Tweek needed, and he didn't say them.

He didn't say them.

"Craig is with me now," Tweek uttered with a weak nod. "Whether or not it was my fault doesn't matter. He needs me."

Tweek rubbed his aching ribs with a grimace. "Can I please go to my room now?"

Richard leaned back in his chair. A huff of breath escaped from his nostrils before he said, "Okay. Okay. Just… don't forget you can talk to me, okay? About Craig, about anything. Me and your mother both."

Tweek nodded his head, but didn't do much else but idle in his chair and clutch his ribs.

"You okay?" Richard asked as he watched Tweek run his hands over his chest with a pained expression on his face.

"Yeah, just my chest again."

"If your ribs are hurting again we need to take you back to the doctor," his father replied.

"Why? So they can tell us nothing's wrong with me again?" Tweek reasoned. "It'll pass, always does."

There were no more words exchanged as Tweek stood from the table. Again, the legs of his chair cried out against the floor. He made his way out of the kitchen and to his room as quickly as he could manage. As he ascended the staircase, the tension in his chest slowly subsided.

Craig was standing in the middle of the hallway. His head was down. The dirty earflaps of his blue hat hid the unpleasant view of his distorted face. Tweek didn't think much of it as his bedroom door slowly creaked open on its own. The lambent image of the little boy drifted into the open door, and Tweek followed.

Relieved of the pinching in his torso, he gladly kicked off his boots by his bed. Craig was on the floor. His arms and legs bended and jerked awkwardly as he slowly crawled up underneath the bedframe. Tweek politely waited for the little specter to settle before crawling into bed himself.

"Goodnight," he muttered quietly as he pulled his thick comforter up over his shoulder.

Craig let out a faint growl.

"Eh, don't worry. David's still butthurt since I threw that book at him yesterday. He'll leave us alone tonight."

With that, Tweek reached up beside his nightstand and flipped the switch. The big light went out, but the nightlight plugged in across the room left a gentle glow rather than pitch dark. It almost felt weird laying down in bed and going to sleep so early, but he was fucking exhausted.

"Bright enough?" Tweek questioned.

Craig replied with silence, which meant yes.

Hours after Tweek finally slipped away into sleep Craig remained alert beneath him.

What was left of bony fingers dug into the bottom of the boxspring. The boy laid flat against it, as if gravity was lost on how to deal with him. Heavy gasps left his sore throat as his gory maw gaped open. His tiny body ached with every cracking bone and empty vein.

There were plenty of places he could have been. There were many nooks and crannies for a tiny ghost such as himself to hide in, but those dark corners and crawlspaces lacked one thing that under the bed had: Tweek. He could feel the warmth of life seeping down through the mattress and into his trembling fingers. He could hear every rhythmic thump of blood being forced through tight veins. He could hear the wisp of every breath that slipped past lax lips.

He knew the way Tweek's bones ground together when he moved. He knew the clean smell of his skin and he memorized every bump and hill that made up Tweek's face. The soft lids that fluttered over his eyes. Blue, Craig thought. He thought they were blue, but he couldn't really remember. He wondered if his own eyes were that color.

The hard tips of his mutilated fingers found their way into his eye sockets. They scraped along the inside of the rotting holes, where he heard his fingers rub against the hardness of his skull. He cried out softly to himself in sorrow.

The mattress above him squeaked as Tweek shifted in bed. He made small, sleepy sounds. Sounds that made Craig's insides quiver. The little monster slowly crawled along the bottom of the bed before poking out from under the bedspread. Branchlike arms crept up onto the mattress. They quietly pulled Craig up and onto the bed.

He pressed his ear against Tweek's chest. He felt the steady rise and fall of a strong pair of lungs. He heard the heavy thumping of a gentle heart. There was nowhere safer than Tweek. There was nowhere Craig felt more comfortable.

He ran his fingers over each rib until the bony tips were pressing against the softness of his stomach. Craig let out a small sound as the ends of his bones pressed up against the underside of Tweek's ribs. He was shivering cold, but Tweek was so warm. Desperate for safety, he allowed his quivering hands to sink down underneath the cage of bone that made up Tweek's torso. He could feel every hard piece of it bump along the tops of his fingers as he slid his arms in deeper. The heavily pumping blood. The comforting sound of Tweek's breaths. They all grew so much clearer.

Tweek didn't feel it as his chest cavity popped and expanded. There wasn't a pinch when an invisible skull forced itself against the insides of his lungs. There wasn't pain when a tiny body made a bed of his soft organs, and there wasn't a scrape when the tips of Craig's sharp fingers caressed his thumping heart. All there was was a pressure. A dull, tight pressure.

When Tweek couldn't see Craig, his chest ached.

...

It was only a day later an apprehensive teenager found himself standing before the woods of Stark's Pond.

The trees in themselves were daunting. They were tall, eerie pillars that obstructed any and all light. The moment he stepped past the tree line a chilly feeling hit him and an odd fog rolled into his mind. Those woods almost seemed to be a portal to a different world. A dreadful sad world that devoured any sense of hope or joy. Still, Kyle stood as strong as his trembling would allow him.

Wind whistled as he trudged onward through the orchard of death. At least that's what it felt like to Kyle. The arms of dark trees leaned down to pluck at him. The soft, wet ground tried to steal his shoes as he walked forward. The darkness descended upon him like a pillow; harmless until it was being used to smother him.

He was unnerved by the creaking and stirring throughout the forest, but he wasn't as afraid as he was the last time he'd found himself there. This time he knew what he was doing. He knew who was there and where he wanted to go. Though, he wasn't entirely sure how to get there. He'd been wandering through the endless loop of wood and dropping leaves. He never seemed to get any farther, but it was hard to tell the trees apart by the trunks caught in his flashlight. He tried his best to follow his gift through the eerie darkness. Sometimes it acted as an internal compass, which guided him towards those long forgotten.

He didn't stop until he finally reached a particular tree. The only thing setting it apart from the rest was the bear still pinned against the wood. It was withered and old looking thanks to the harsh elements, and some type of green moss turned the Teddy's fluffy foot fibers into a new home. The irresistible urge to feel it under his fingers washed over him like ice water. He licked his lips and stepped towards it. Kenny was not there to thwart him that time.

He knew before he even took hold of it what it was going to do. Tweek was given visions through his eyes. They were given to Kyle though his hands. And so, the wet and mossy paw of the teddy squished unpleasantly between Kyle's shaking fingers.

_THUMP. THUMP. THUMP._

A long, thick nail was driven through the chest of a stuffed animal. The same stuffed animal Kyle was squeezing tightly in his killer grip. The sun was shining through the trees in long beams, illuminating the back of a blond head. Kyle was finally able to pry his rigid fingers away, but the image lingered.

It seemed the shadowman was behind more than just Stark's mysterious holes. The tree of dolls seemed to Kyle like far less of a mystery. If he spent most of his nights surrounded by the mischievous spirits of children he'd probably want to appease them, too.

Which brought him to the reason he was searching for it in the first place.

His backpack slipped off the peaks of his shoulders, and he digged through it to find a toy of his own. It was something that used to belong to his little brother, Ike, when he was little. It was a red, stuffed car. It was more like a pillow, really, but he thought it would do fine.

He kneeled down at the base of the tree. His flashlight brightened the button eyes of stuffed animals as he set the car down amongst their ranks. He swallowed hard, and then uttered a small message to whatever entities might be listening. And he knew they were.

"I brought this for you- to prove I'm not here to hurt anyone," his throat felt dry as he spoke. "I just want to help Tweek."

Leaves rustled softly as spirits swayed through the trees. Through the whimsical sound, he heard the familliar grinding of bones. It was a sickening noise he'd only ever heard one other time. He shot up and quickly backed away from the tree.

Something caught in the beam of his flashlight. A small squeak of fear slipped past his lips when he saw a pale figure peeking at him through the forest. Well, it would be peeking if it had any eyes. The little spirit let out a low hiss in warning. The gaping hole of its mouth was just as pitch black as its eyes, but at least it wasn't crammed with razor-like teeth.

Kyle swallowed hard and backed away.

"Please… d-don't chase me," Kyle begged. "I'm not going to hurt you or Tweek or any of your little friends. I promise..."

When the disembodied hissing did not seize, Kyle felt his chest tighten up. He never encountered a spirit even comparable to that tiny creature stalking him in the woods. He didn't know what Craig really was, let alone what he was capable of.

"Oh! I brought you a present," Kyle uttered in a bit of a panic.

The hissing slowed when Kyle picked the car up from the tree and held it out with shaking hands. He squeezed it's middle, which played some cheesy theme song for a show he never watched before.

_"Go RedRacer, go!'_ the toy chimed merrily at the peak of its song. When Kyle blinked, the mangled form that had been spying on him was standing only a few feet away. It's rotting face tipped from side to side as it listened to the melody. Tweek liked to call Craig his puppy when he'd do that, as if the decaying cavities his skull were doe eyes and pert lips.

Kyle, however, wasn't blinded by unconditional love.

The appirition's angered hissing was replaced by high cooing, but kyle didn't feel any safer than he did before. On wobbly legs the pintsized monster staggered forward. Kyle instinctively let out a scream as long limbs exploded from Craig's back. They snatched the RedRacer plush right out of Kyle's grasp before bolting back into the darkness of the woods. He shined his light through the veil of swaying branches and leaves. That same melody chimed over and over again from somewhere amongst the trees. It echoed distortedly, which made that happy tune seem a lot less happy to Kyle.

Along with the music came faint laughter. After steadily swallowing a wad of spit, Kyle followed the noise aimlessly through the thick foliage. The hope was that Craig would lead him to Tweek. There was really no other way, he but he wasn't sure if tailing the giggling of a hostile spirit was the best idea he ever had.

As long as Craig wasn't trying to tear him to shreds he supposed he'd be alright.

Twigs snapped and rustled beneath his shoes as he tired to keep up with Craig's noises. He got nervous when the sounds faded away, but they were soon replaced by something else completely. It was a sharp and heavy noise, like someone slamming metal into earth. He kicked up leaves as he sprinted towards it. He came barreling out of the treeline as bis light shined into an opening in the woods. A horrified shriek immediately followed Kyle's rucus, but it didn't come from him. It came from the six foot tall, hooded figure wielding a shovel nearby.

The shadowman's first instinct was always to run. Capture was not an option, and he'd rather be made out a coward than an idiot. So he turned away from the person who'd just snuck up on him and bolted in the opposite direction.

"Tweek! No, wait! It's me!" Kyle screamed in desperation. "Kyle! Kyle Broflovski!"

Tweek did stop, but he was obviously not trusting. He backed away into a bush, where he had plenty of options for escape if it came to that.

"What the hell are you doing here?" The cloaked figure spat with his shovel raised in defense.

Kyle's hands shot up as a show of submission, then quickly yelled, "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to freak you out like that!"

"Wh-... how did you even find me?" Tweek demanded. He was still partially hidden in nearby foliage, but Kyle could see him just fine thanks to the moon and his flashlight.

"Craig led me here," Kyle replied with a nod of his head. "I just… I wanted to help you."

Tweek slowly dropped his tool to his side and slid out from his hiding place. He didn't seem to know what to make of what he was hearing.

"… You came to help me?" Tweek said in a voice unsure and suspicious. "And Craig was the one who brought you here?"

"Well… yeah," Kyle said while fiddling with the grip of his own shovel. It wasn't nearly as long as the shadowman's, but it stayed put when he slipped the handle in his belt. "I brought him a stuffed animal- like the ones you nailed to the tree in the woods."

"How did you know that was me?"

"The teddy bear showed me."

After hearing such a ridiculous thing fall out of Kyle's mouth Tweek replied, "You really are just as fucked up as I am, aren't you?"

"Well... maybe not _quite _as fucked up."

Tweek didn't care for Kyle's jokes.

"I already told you. I _don't_ need help." In fact, he couldn't stress enough just how much he didn't want Kyle, or anyone else, to be there.

"You aren't even going to give me a chance?" Kyle asked while pulling his own tool off of his belt. It dwarfed the shadowman's trusted metal companion, but it would work fine nonetheless. "I brought my own shovel, if that makes a difference."

Tweek actually frowned at that. Thankfully, the shadows of his hood hid his somber expression.

"Give me a single reason why I should give you or anybody else a chance," Tweek spat bitterly. Kyle could hear a shovel hit the ground again, though he couldn't see it. His flashlight was too busy scanning though the trees to illuminate the person before him.

"Well, I don't know about everybody else, but I'm standing right here with a perfectly good shovel," Kyle replied carefully.

Kyle stood for a moment as Tweek continued to drive the metal tip into the beginnings of a fresh hole. He didn't say a single word, which sounded more like an open invitation to Kyle. He came up alongside Tweek with his tool at his side and sank it down into the fresh earth. He didn't feel like he was actually accomplishing anything compared to Tweek, who was more than well versed in hole digging. However, there was only one bit of advice the shadowman passed on to the rookie:

"Dig deep."

* * *

><p><strong>Thanks so much for reading! ; u ; reviews are appreciated! They let me know you guys are enjoying the ride.<strong>


	7. The Dog

_I once heard my music box play: Up There by VersaEmerge_

**Oculus**  
>Chapter 6; <em>The Dog<em>

The soothing sound of water bubbled up from between the wooden boards beneath them. Shadows cast by the setting sun made whimsical shapes along the creek, and Kyle smiled to himself when one touched the tip of is dangling foot. Since the bridge was first built along the beaten path of the park, they found a haven in it. It was a quiet and tranquil place; somewhere for deep conversations and pondering questions.

It was a place to confide secrets, which was exactly what Kyle had planned.

He reached down and rubbed the green and white yarn tied around his wrist. The person beside him leaned through the wooden railings to peek down at the water. They were sitting side by side, both pairs of legs hanging over the edge.

"Stan," Kyle began anxiously. He couldn't quite look over at him. He didn't want to see the look of doubt he was about to receive. "There's something I need to talk to you about."

Stan looked over his shoulder. Pieces of his ice-cream sandwich were stuck to his face. He wiped it off with his sleeve before swallowing his mouthful.

"What? What is it?" he asked with uneasiness sullying his face. When Kyle began a conversation like that, it usually spelled trouble.

Kyle let out a breath he'd been holding. He stared at his hands as he held onto his own ice-cream. Sometimes he wished he could just chop them off.

"I have to tell you something, but you have to believe me, okay? No matter how crazy or weird it sounds. I just need someone to know…"

Stan sat attentively. His brows were raised, and his snack was forgotten in his hands.

"Well…" Kyle scratched the back of his neck. "… I see things other people don't see."

"Like what?"

"Like… I don't know what they are for sure. Ghosts?" he nearly blushed in humiliation having said that.

"You've seen ghosts?" Stan asked with the quirk of his lip. "That's not so bad, my mom's seen one before. My uncle Jimbo did once, too."

Kyle looked down into the water below them. The river flowed lazily around rocks and grass as it passed under their bridge. Stan took another small bite of his ice-cream sandwich. Kyle mimicked him.

"You don't think it's bad because you don't have to live with it," he finally replied between bites. "They can be… horrible."

"Horrible how?"

"Well… there's this girl! She's in the house behind mine. She always looks at me through the window, but she doesn't have a face. She just has this big hole where it should be."

"Whoa," Stan sputtered, almost spewing crumbs all over his shirt. "Wait, really?"

Kyle's gaze flicked down to the water again as he played with the wrapper of his ice cream. "Yeah, really," He finally muttered miserably.

"Hey, It's not that I don't believe you! Just, wow," Stan quickly clarified. "That _is_ pretty scary."

Kyle nodded his head hard. "They all are. Even the ones that look normal. It's like… I can't even look up sometimes because I know one of them are staring at me. It's like a _curse_."

Stan shook his head at hearing that. "I don't think it's a curse."

"You don't?"

"Well… no, think about it. You're seeing people, right? Like… sure the girl in the window looks scary as hell, but that doesn't make her less of a person. She was somebody's daughter. Maybe even someone's sister, or mom, or best friend. She's up there all by herself, and you can see her," Stan said as he slowly shook his head. "Dude, you could help a lot of people with that one day. I can't speak for you, but I'd call that a gift before I'd call it a curse."

Kyle looked up at Stan with a wavering look. It was moments like those that reminded Kyle why they were such close friends. His green eyes went half lidded as he rested his chin on the railing before him.

"Maybe you're right," Kyle finally said, though it came out garbled because of how he was sitting. Stan's passionate words got him thinking, but no amount of passionate speeches could change the fear tingling the back of Kyle's skull.

A gift or a curse, he wasn't sure.

Stan gave a reassuring smile as Kyle bit into his ice-cream. He had plenty of time to worry about it later.

* * *

><p>Kyle's gaze shifted to the muddy earth they'd been tearing into. Their holes were both deep, but empty. Just two useless dents bored into the ground that held nothing more than dirt and air. Earth worms wriggled through the freshly disturbed soil, but that was all. They had not come across the little boy's decaying body. Kyle doubted they ever would.<p>

He couldn't keep enough strength to compete with the Shadowman. He'd tried and tried for hours to keep up. Literally hours. His arms were tired and weak, and his lungs felt like they were collapsing. A small break wouldn't hurt. He lowered himself down onto the mud-covered ground to let his legs relax. Tweek, on the other hand, did not stop. Not for a moment.

Kyle was sure if Tweek didn't have obligations like sleep and school he would have already hollowed out the earth.

Kyle's legs rested in the grimy hole he dug. It wasn't nearly as deep as Tweek's, seeing as how Tweek was standing knee deep into the earth. He watched the black figure toss aside shovelfuls of ick and grime. Kyle just couldn't imagine doing this every night. How did Tweek keep his grades up? How did he ever get any sleep or make it to school on time?

The pale skin of Tweek's face could easily be seen in the light of the moon. The same was said for the brown bandanna that covered his nose and mouth. The bandanna, Kyle noted, was a new addition to the Shadowman's uniform. Tweek's eyes stayed sharp and focused. They shifted over every grain of dirt and squirming worm. The deeper Tweek dug the softer his shovel hit the ground.

"You aren't gonna get much deeper at that rate," Kyle said.

Tweek's eyes shifted from his work to Kyle's face. They rested there for a moment before muttering, "If your best friend's body could be only a few inches below you, you wouldn't want to crush his skull with the end of your shovel, would you?"

There was a dog. It stood upright in the grim darkness of the tree line. The tails of its fancy blue suit did not move with the wind that gusted around it. Its bulging black eye did twitch through a monocle. Tweek did not see the dog. Kyle did not see the dog.

You do not see the dog.

Tweek hoisted his tool onto his shoulder and stared down into the hole below him. Those hard eyes softened with defeat when he realized yet again there was no Craig laying curled up beneath his feet. Kyle watched as Shadowman painstakingly began to fill back in the hole he'd spent so long digging up. With a grimace, he stood to do the same.

It didn't take nearly as long to repair the damage they'd done, thankfully. Tweek patted the freshly covered hole with the bottom of his boot before wiping his forehead and sniffing.

"Well… I guess that's it for tonight," Tweek stood for a moment with his eyes clamped closed. He seemed almost to be praying, but Kyle caught a meek apology carried by the breeze. An apology to Craig.

When the six foot figure turned to walk away Kyle was right on his heels. He didn't allow much distance to separate them in fear of getting lost out there again.

"We're making a stop, first. Don't feel like walking all the way home after all that."

Kyle quickly nodded in agreement. The few minutes he spent sitting didn't quite make up for all the breath he lost shoveling. His arms felt like limp noodles, and his legs were stiff and achy. He didn't want to walk either.

He trailed behind his odd companion for a short while before he caught the siding of a house in the beam of his flashlight. It was grimy and chipping away, and broken reflections shined back at him from busted windows. He recognized that house immediately. He could still remember the lambent candle that lead him there.

Tweek sighed in relief as he stepped through the back door. The kitchen looked just like Kyle remembered it. Old and musty. The cabinets were still falling apart. Sections were crumbling out of the frame and most of it's doors were broken off, just like before. There was just one small detail he didn't notice until right then. They were littered in cobwebs. Cobwebs with nasty looking spiders on them. It made his skin crawl remembering he'd climbed inside of those webs in his panic. He was probably covered in creepy crawlies when he climbed back out.

"What's wrong?" Tweek asked as he pulled his bandana down around his neck. "You look white."

"N-nothing," He mumbled in response before stepping away from the arachnid farm. "I just can't believe I crawled in that thing."

Tweek actually laughed, which caught Kyle off guard. "Wait, what?"

Kyle dismissed the conversation with a wave of his hand. Tweek was too lazy and disinterested to ask again. He let his black cloak slip off his shoulders before laying it across the decrepit kitchen table. He placed his shovel there, too, before walking through the kitchen and opening another door. Kyle propped his own shovel up against the wall. He didn't quite feel right thinking about placing it beside Tweek's. Anxious, he followed after him.

When he stepped through the doorway he was met with a colonial looking living room. The couch was old, but fancy. Expensive looking lamps collected dust and grime on the tops of rotting side tables. The windows were covered in floral draperies, and there were dirty squares along the walls where pictures used to be. The centerpiece of the room was a massive fireplace. It was just as ancient as the rest of the room, but it looked like it'd just burned out. Fresh ashes and soot lined its bottom along with a few pieces of trash.

"Let's light the fire and sit for a while," Tweek suggested as he moved across the room.

There was a small collection of twigs and wood loosely thrown into the far corner. Tweek collected a bundle from it before tossing them into the fireplace. Using a bottle of lighter fluid from the mantle, he doused the lumber.

"Isn't there a better way to light it?" Kyle asked with concern when he saw Tweek pull a matchbox from his pocket.

"Probably," Tweek said before striking the match. The wood burst into a mini inferno. A bright, orange glow assaulted Kyle's vision and flicked across their bodies. The eerie shadows of their bodies danced along the flaking wallpaper. After a few blinks Kyle felt grateful and turned off his flashlight.

Tweek was poking at the fire with a metal rod when Kyle's phone went off. It was such a loud and intrusive sound they both jumped about ten feet. Kyle quickly dug in the pocket of his jacket to silence the loud wailing. When he pulled it out a familiar name displayed across the screen._ Kenny_.

"Hello?" He questioned into the receiver as Tweek glanced back at him.

"Ky? Hey, where the hell are you?"

"What do you mean?" Kyle asked. "It's like one in the morning you should be in bed."

"Yeah, so should you," Kenny retorted. "Where are you?"

"Umm, I dunno," Kyle shrugged as innocently as he could manage, as if Kenny could see that.

"Apparently your mom doesn't, either. She called and said you were spending the night to help me with my homework, which I thought was kind of funny seeing as how that's not a thing that happened."

"Well… what did you tell her?" Kyle suddenly asked in the most petrified voice Kenny had ever heard. If she found out Kyle lied about going to Kenny's so he could dig up bodies with the Shadowman, he would probably end up grounded. Or dead. He could also end up dead.

"I told her sorry but you were sleeping, of course," Kenny grumbled more to himself it seemed. "I don't like lying to your mom, man. It makes me feel _weird_."

"Ugh. I'm sorry. I just needed a cover. I do it for you all the time."

"Because I'm a rotten bad boy who likes to roam the streets at night and party. You don't do either of those things, so fess up. Where are you?"

"Um," Kyle tapped his feet against the dirty rug beneath him. "Wait, what did you say? I -n't hear yo-."

Tweek watched with a cocked brow as Kyle made static noises into his cell phone.

"Kyle, don't you dare."

"What was that? _Sshhhhhhhkksshh_, sorry I can't- you're breaking _shh_ up."

"You little turd don't you hang up on-"

Kyle shoved his phone in his pocket. He and Tweek stared at one another in silence. The humored look on Tweek's face demanded an explinaion.

Kyle grinned and shrugged. "It was Kenny. He kinda worries a lot, you know…"

Tweek looked back into the fire. Kyle squatted down and scooted closer, raising both his hands up towards the warmth of the flames.

"… why are you here?" Tweek asked in quiet thought.

"I told you, to help-"

"No, why are you _really _here?"

Kyle went silent for a short while. Was it really so hard for Tweek to accept that someone just cared enough to lend him a hand? Then again, that wasn't Kyle's entire reason for being there, was it?

Kyle's mouth twisted as he patted globs of dirt off of his knees.

"You know, when we were younger I had such a hard time understanding you," Kyle uttered as he continued to flick blades of grass off his jeans. "I was so scared of anybody treating me different I kept my gift a secret, and there you were telling everybody who'd listen about yours. Even though they made fun of you, you wouldn't deny it or try to take it back."

Tweek just kept on poking at the fire. It was almost like he wasn't listening, but Kyle knew he was.

"But you never told anyone until Craig came. You weren't doing it for yourself, you were doing it for him."

"So what? What does that have to do with anything?"

Kyle looked down at his mud-caked shoes. He bit his bottom lip and let out a low sigh.

"I used to have a friend. Someone who meant everything to me. He always said that people like you and I had our power because we'd use it to help others… but I never did. I never tried to help anyone. How could I if I was so scared of them?" Kyle kept his gaze trained onto the freshly lit fire before him. He was trying so hard to sound confident, but kept falling short. "I was so terrified that I looked things up online to keep them away. I tried salt circles and all different kinds of candles, blessed buckeyes, covered my mirrors- _everything_. I spent so long trying to pretend they weren't there I don't know anything about them. Now that I have someone I want to help my gift is useless."

Tweek had stopped what he was doing to listen. Kyle caught his attention, but it was even harder to speak with those eyes burning through him.

"But you… you've spend every moment of every day with one… you have to know more about it- more about what we are and what we can do… more about _them_."

Tweek set his poker down on the hardwood floor before exhaling a sigh.

"Listen, Kyle," Tweek muttered. He ran his tongue along the edges of his teeth as he tried to find a way to gently explain this to him. "If you've made it this far unscathed, keep doing what you've been doing. You don't _want_ to know about them. I promise you that much. And as for your friend… well, I don't know how to help mine, either."

The fire flicked across Kyle's stern face. He shook his head with the same stubborn resolve that get him into that mess in the first place. "I already know some. I get visions through my hands when I touch things- sometimes they're _terrible_. I've seen their faces and heard their voices- one even chased me. So don't go treating me like some delicate flower who can't handle this. I'm fucking not."

Tweek found himself so intrigued he wasn't even startled by Kyle's cursing. Getting visions just by touching things? Tweek definitely couldn't do that. He needed his eyes for visions while it seemed like all Kyle needed were his hands.

Weird, but interesting.

"Well, then, since y-you're so keen on stirring up things." Shit. Tweek's stutter was rearing its ugly head. "First thing's first. I don't know if you noticed, but not all of them are nice. Don't go around expecting to '_send them into the light'_ or something dumb like that- some of them can touch you. Some of them can _hurt_ you."

"… I know that," Kyle admitted with the weakest nod. Well, he knew part of that. His encounter with Craig was so petrifying because he had no idea he could be physically assaulted. He still bared the wounds around his ankle from those sharp fingertips, and now Tweek was saying he wasn't the only one with that power.

Tweek was staring at him dumbly, as if he was waiting for a sentence to be finished. Sighing weakly, Kyle decided to roll up his dirty pant leg and showcase his battle scars. There were five little holes in his leg. There was one for each of that little monster's fingers. Tweek rolled up his nose before moving closer. He took a hold of Kyle's ankle and stared at the healing wounds with furrowed brows.

"What did this to you?" He asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

"Well… Craig," Kyle replied timidly. "The first time I saw him he came after me and dragged me to the ground."

"Wait. He attacked you?" Tweek shot a look of shock into the darkness behind him. Kyle couldn't help but notice movement amongst the flickering shadows. A long, dark figure spilt away from the corner. Disembodied booming filled the room as a tiny pair of feet slammed along the staircase. Craig ran upstairs to hide.

Tweek frowned. Kyle swallowed hard.

"I don't think he was trying to hurt me. I figured he was just protecting you, I mean… there were all these kids in a circle around him and-"

"Were they holding hands?"

"…Yeah."

That was explanation enough for Tweek. Kyle stumbled upon Craig in the midst of an attack. He broke the healing circle. Craig went berserk. It made sense, but it didn't mean he was any less upset. _His_ Craig trying to hurt someone? It seemed unthinkable.

"I'm sorry," Tweek uttered as he pulled Kyle's pant leg back down. "He just kind of has these… fits sometimes, you know? It's like he gets scared and just goes off the deep end."

"Oh… like a panic disorder?" Kyle asked as he wrapped his arms around his knees. "If someone drown him in the pond he could have some kind of Post Traumatic Stress…"

Tweek stared at Kyle for a long moment without as much as a blink.

"It kinda creeps me out how you know things like that," Tweek said.

"_I_ creep _you_ out?" Kyle scoffed. "I'm not the one with a weird little ghost stalking me."

Tweek knit his brows together, giving Kyle a horrified stare. His eyes shifted nervously towards the wall to Kyle's back.

"What?… Then who's that?"

Startled, Kyle turned around to try to catch a glimpse of whatever Tweek was seeing. Unlike Tweek, all he saw was the crumbling floral pattern of wallpaper in the fire light. He blinked and looked back at his companion as shivers trickled up his spine.

"Who is who?" Kyle demanded as he went ridged.

Tweek kept his eyes trained onto the wall for a moment before looking back into the fire.

"Nevermind," was all he said, which only freaked Kyle out even more. So much so that he moved so his back wouldn't be facing that particular wall.

"How about we go back home," Tweek decided quickly as he stood up. "I just have to go coax Craig down real quick."

That thought was like a rusted nail being driven into Kyle's head. He was slowly trying to accompany himself to Craig and his grotesque form. His terrifying ability to hurt him if only he had the mind. Craig didn't love Kyle like he loved Tweek, and Kyle didn't have any defense against him.

At least not that he was aware of.

Heavy footsteps snapped him out of his trance. Tweek's boots creaked the stairs as he ascended into the darkness. Kyle flicked on his flashlight to watch as he stood up to follow. Looking up towards the second story, he was met with a wall of pitch black. Not even the beam of his flashlight could cut through it.

Tweek waded easily through the black fog. He wouldn't have been much of a shadowman if he couldn't. He already knew where Craig was. His boots creaked the floorboards as he headed towards a particular door. It lead to a bedroom. Inside was a makeshift table littered with paper coffee cups, a map tacked up against the wall, and a door. From beyond that door was the quiet sound of children's sobs. The sound Tweek couldn't handle hearing. He gripped the handle, but it wouldn't budge.

Tweek leaned against the frame and pressed his forehead into the wood.

"Craig," he uttered quietly.

There was a rustling. One hundred and twenty little fingers scraped along the walls inside. A low gurgling bubbled out from within, accompanied by the miserable cries of a guilt-ridden child.

Tweek closed his eyes.

"I know you didn't mean to hurt him," he uttered against the door. "You were just as scared as he was, I know."

Something pressed up against the other side of the door. A few little stray hands poked out from the crack underneath, their fingers ready to be caressed and forgiven. The majority of his limbs, along with Craig himself, remained locked inside his anguish.

'_Go, Red Racer! Go!' _chimed from inside. Craig was curled up in the corner while clutching the stuffed toy against his chest. Hands caressed his shoulders as he heaved. He didn't even care a few of his arms had wandered away. At least not until he felt a big pair of fingers rub some of digits wriggling though the gap in the floor. They quickly latched onto Tweek, and Craig's heaving slowed.

Meanwhile, Kyle was still fidgeting at the bottom of the staircase.

"Are you coming back down?" he demanded for the thousandth time only to be answered with the pops of the fireplace. Fuck, he felt so uneasy being left in that room alone.

_'Go Red Racer! Go!'_ suddenly sank down from the darkness, followed by low and mischievous laughter.

He could feel his muscles tensing in fear. Oh, good god he did not want to go up there. For all he knew he'd come face to face with an otherworldly creature hell-bent on devouring his soul. But Tweek was taking so fucking long, and that creepy feeling was not going away. He anxiously rubbed the yarn around his wrist.

Against his better judgment, he carefully took his first step onto the staircase. A screaming figure lurched out of the darkness and plummeted onto the stairs with a startling slam. His heart fucking exploded. Kyle let out a terrified scream and instinctively hurtled his flashlight at the wailing creature.

"Ouch!" he heard someone yelp as the heavy thing bounced off of their shoulder and went tumbling back down the steps. He had not just encountered an otherworldly creature hell-bent on devouring his soul. He encountered Tweek, who was laughing like the fucking idiot he was.

"Wh- _Holy shit! _What'd you do that for?!" Kyle demanded. His heart was still thumping so hard he thought he might faint, but Tweek was beyond pleased with himself. "You scared the piss out of me!"

"Hey, if you wanna keep hanging around me, you better get used to getting scared," Tweek warned through his humored chuckling.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Tweek replied with a shrug, which made Kyle frown. He couldn't tell if Tweek was being sincere or just trying to scare him away.

"Well that's enough of that," Tweek said while rubbing his shoulder as if to make sure it was still in place. At least Kyle got a good whack at him. "Let's put out the fire and get going."

It was simply a given that Tweek would be walking him home again. Neither said a word against or for it. They both just walked through the spider covered kitchen and made their way out together. Tweek grabbed his robe on his way, though he stuffed it in a backpack that had been sitting under the table. He didn't want to be spotted leaving the pond with it.

As soon as they stepped onto the porch a chilly breeze swept over them. Kyle zipped his jacket up to his chin as Tweek stepped off the wooden stoop. The moon was still dangling high above them, which left plenty of light out in the clearing. He jogged after Tweek and turned on his flashlight yet again to see through the creaking trees and rustling leaves.

That's when he noticed something he found particularly disturbing. The back of Tweek's jacket was… _squirming_. He shined his flashlight on the disturbing show as he followed behind at an increasing distance. It was almost like tiny fingers were sprouting from Tweek's spine and scraping along the fabric. Tweek noticed the tugging at the cloth, but only put up his hood.

"T-tweek," Kyle whispered when the other didn't stop.

When Tweek finally turned around, Kyle was met with an unsettling sight. A pair of arms had sprouted from the darkness of his jacket to wrap tightly around his neck. They looked as though they'd been decaying under someone's porch for a year, but Tweek didn't seem to mind at all that they were there. Kyle jumped and stumbled back when a tiny face poked out from inside Tweek's hood. It wasn't the first time Kyle saw those rotting holes, but they never seized to frighten him.

"It's just Craig," Tweek muttered as the eyeless face buried itself into his neck.

Kyle swallowed hard, but hesitantly continued to follow his odd companions through the woods. The big lump under Tweek's jacket didn't seem to deter him in the slightest.

Neither spoke as they finally left the pond and came upon the church. A woman was sitting at the bench as they passed. She smiled and waved, oblivious to the jacket draped horror clinging to Tweek's back. The hooded teen returned the gesture, and the woman went back to playing on her phone.

"She can't even see your jacket's lifted up, can she?" Kyle asked under his breath.

"No."

And again, they were doused in silence. The only conversation being had was between their footsteps and Craig's garbled noises. It sounded like the little thing was in so much agony. It remained that way until they yet again found themselves on the sidewalk in front of Kyle's house. He wasn't really sure how he was going to explain coming home at… he checked his phone… three o' clock in the morning to his mom, but he'd figure something out.

"Can I ask you one more question?" Kyle said as he stepped up onto his parent's front stoop.

Tweek's gaze wavered a moment as he clutched onto the handle of his backpack. He nodded stiffly. Those grungy, bruised arms were still interlaced around his neck. Kyle pretended it didn't bother him.

"So… at the house," Kyle uttered while he rang his hands together. "Did you really see someone behind me, or were you just trying to scare me like on the stairs?"

Tweek furrowed his brows together before looking down at his feet. "Do you want me to tell you the truth?"

Kyle immediately nodded.

"I wasn't lying."

"What did it look like?" Kyle asked before Tweek could even finish his sentence. "Did you see who it was?"

Tweek couldn't help but stare at Kyle dumbly. The last thing he expected was for Kyle to be _excited_. Then again, Kyle had his own issues too, and Tweek wasn't about to pretend to know what they were.

"No. It's face was gone," Tweek replied honestly.

Kyle's expression dropped dramatically before he wrapped himself tighter in his jacket.

"So… so is Craig always in pain?" Kyle asked quietly. "When people die do they just… always stay the way they were when it happened?"

Tweek slowly nodded. "Pretty ghosts don't exist- not unless they went in tact. If you die in a fire your skins gonna always be scorching. It's just… how it works."

Kyle's eyes slid downward with a deep sorrow Tweek hadn't expected. It almost made him feel bad, but he wasn't going to lie just to spare Kyle's feelings. If he really wanted to learn more about them, he better get used to the truth being ugly. Tweek still felt bad, though, when he looked into Kyle's eyes. It was visibly obvious how upset he'd become.

Kyle nodded his head with a small smile, but tears were brimming in the corners of his eyes.

"Well… thank you," he finally muttered, "for talking to me."

With that, Kyle slowly shut the door once again.

…

That day was a dark and confusing time for Kenny and company. They all sat fidgeting around their table. Not a single bite had been taken of their breakfasts, (except for Cartman's ) and Kenny was tapping his fingers against the tabletop. Not a single one of them said anything, but they were all quietly contemplating over the same empty seat.

Where the hell was Kyle?

Butters finally cleared his throat to bring a voice to all of their concerns. "Maybe he went to class early- to study or something."

That seemed like as logical of an excuse as any. He did occasionally ditch breakfast to study in the silence of his first period classroom.

"He wasn't on the bus, though," Kenny muttered more to himself in thought. He had a little more reason than the others to worry. He was the only one who knew that Kyle was off doing god knows what the night before. What if he didn't make it home? What if something terrible happened? No. No, he wouldn't allow himself to believe he could have lost another friend.

"Maybe he's sick," Cartman offered with feigned disinterest.

"But Kyle never missed a day of school, not since fifth grade," Butters said in worry. "He wouldn't just forfeit his perfect attendance 'cause he wasn't feeling well."

The table grew quiet after that. Their minds were running wild with the terrible things that could have happened. Kenny, however, wasn't going to just sit and stew in worry. He felt he knew Kyle better than anyone, and there were a few places he was bound to be hiding. He stood up from his seat. The warm meal on his plate was completely untouched as he worked his way around the table.

"Ey, where do you think you're going?" Cartman barked from behind him. Kenny didn't answer. He didn't want to be chased after.

Kenny had a short list of places Kyle ran away to when he was upset. He hoped that's all his disappearance meant. It better have been, or else he was calling in a police squad because god dammit if he lost another friend. That was his only thinking as he checked himself out in the office and headed outside.

…

Grass swayed in the early morning breeze. The sun was still just beginning to peek up over the mountain tops and a thin layer of sparkling dew lingered in the grass. Kenny bit his lower lip when he caught a glimpse of someone's legs dangling over the edge of the bridge.

Feeling his chest swell up with relief, he ran up the dirt path that lead to the wooden structure. It was indeed Kyle. Kenny could spot that bright green ushanka from a mile away. His feet lightly approached. Kyle's arms were propped up on the bottom half on the wooden railing. His face was buried in them.

Kyle didn't raise his head up when he heard someone else's feet move along the boards beneath him. He just sat there in relative silence, expecting them to just pass by without a word. He was wrong. They came to a stop beside him, and he peeked up over his arm when he felt someone sit down and hang their feet over the edge like he had been. The moment he caught a glimpse of orange he knew who it was.

"What are you doing out here on a school day?" Kenny questioned with that wide smile of his.

Kyle put his face back into his arms to keep Kenny from seeing how wet his cheeks were. He shrugged.

Kenny's eyes grew softer. The planks below them creaked as Kyle slowly inched closer. After clearing his throat, he draped his arm over his friend's shoulders.

"It's not fair," Kyle finally whimpered.

"What's not?"

"That people have to die. Young people who haven't even gotten to live yet."

Kenny's usually wide grin melted into a straight line. He leaned forward against the railing to watch the current of water swoosh beneath them. He squeezed Kyle's shoulder.

Unbeknownst to Kyle, Kenny knew more about death than he'd ever venture to guess. Every answer he ever wanted was sitting right beside him, not that Kenny would ever tell. Death was a dark and scary place, and all Kenny wanted was to keep Kyle's mind away from it. To protect him from it.

That was proving harder and harder.

"Kyle," Kenny began gently. "... is this about the ghosts?"

Kyle wiped at his cheeks before he looked up into the morning sky. He didn't want to lie. Not to Kenny.

He let out a quiet breath before his head rested against the wooden railing.

"Yes."

"Is... is that why you've been asking so much about Craig?" Kenny pondered aloud.

Kyle closed his eyes tight to keep the brightness of the sun out of them. He knocked his heel against the bottom of the bridge.

"Yes."

A look crossed Kenny's face that he was glad Kyle didn't see. It was one of pure horror when he realized the implications of it. They were right. Craig didn't just run off into the night. He isn't out there living the life of a hobo somewhere.

He was gone.

They swapped roles. This time it was Kenny wanting to ask all the questions neither of them had answers to. Instead, he held his tongue before resting his upper half against the plank before him.

"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," Kenny promised quietly. "But did something happen last night?"

"I… I found something out," Kyle admitted as he scratched his nails against the rail. "That… when someone dies, they stay the way they were the moment it happened."

This was not news to Kenny. He found that out the first time his brains were splattered across pavement.

After a shaky sigh, Kyle continued.

"I don't think there are any bright lights that take souls to some better place- death is like a painful limbo. If you died cause your head was smashed in it's going to stay smashed in. You'll feel that forever," Kyle shook his head hard. He wanted to wipe the tears brimming in the edges of his eyes again, but all that would do was draw more attention to them.

"So… if I ever did get to see him again…" He couldn't hold it back anymore. A sob spilled out of him. "Would I even get see his face?"

* * *

><p><strong>I'd like to thank predominantlynormal, h3ll4w, and askstanleymarshmallow of tumblr for the fanart. It's all so great ;O;<strong>

**It's been a long time since I've done this! But I also want to thank Ms. Briar, 3rd Elric, DoubleDexterity, MillionPiecesOfTheSky , that-one-kid, and two guests for their reviews! Writing would be lonely without you guys, so thank you so much!**


End file.
